Mission of the CEURES project is to contribute to urban resiliency in Central Europe through finding best practices and sharing the knowledge among urban planners, local governments and young professionals within a powerful cooperation of Urban Development Association – UAD (HU) as lead partner, University of Hradec Kralove (CZ), Leszczycki Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of Sciences (PL), Forum Regional Development Centre (SK) and PONTIBUS EGTC (SK-HU).
CEURES intends to collect the scattered best practices and knowledge born in recent years in the field of urban resilience in V4 countries and reach the most relevant target groups for maximum impact through the following:
Civil Napok 2023 (Civic Days 2023) (in cooperation with the Round Table of Hungarians in Slovakia)
Civic Days 2023 took place for the first time in Komárno, on 29-30 November 2023. The two-day event was designed to provide an opportunity for Hungarian NGOs in Slovakia and all those who want to do something for the community to meet, learn from interesting presentations, discussions and each other, to become inspired and to plan together.
The main theme of our conference was the internal and external networking of CSOs, which was the guiding principle for both days’ programmes. The first day of the conference was open with various presentations and discussions on topical issues. During the second day we worked in working groups. Professionals invited additional experts and active actors on different topics to articulate the vision of the given topic in the Hungarian community in Slovakia and to plan their work for the coming year.
Learning for Peace (within the Forum Institute consortium)
The Learning for Peace project, funded by ERASMUS+ and implemented in 2023 in collaboration with Sigmund Freud University in Vienna, explored how the stories of the past could be used in educational programmes to make people more critical of history and thus of the current populist, aggressive political trends that have proven to have plunged societies into wars and economic crises in the past. The outcome of the project are recommendations for educators on how to use the stories recorded about past conflicts in the teaching process.
Maďari.sk (in cooperation with the Round Table of Hungarians in Slovakia)
The aim of the maďari.sk podcast is to present interesting personalities of the Hungarian national minority in Slovakia, who through their personal stories present the life and culture of Hungarians in Slovakia in Slovak language. The podcast was created in 2022 and is available on madari.sk and all major streaming services. The podcast is hosted by Gabika Zubríková, the Slovak host of the successful podcast show DÁSATO. The guests represent the diversity of the Hungarian community in Slovakia in terms of profession, sector, age or gender. The interviews are around 30-35 minutes long and aim to bring Slovak listeners closer to the lives of Hungarians in Slovakia and their views on living with Slovaks.
Maradok / Chcem tu zostať (I want to stay) (within the Forum Institute consortium)
In the run-up to the 2023 parliamentary elections, the Forum Institute coordinated the Hungarian part of the Maradok / Chcem tu zostať campaign. The youth campaign was implemented in cooperation with various Hungarian partner organisations in Southern Slovakia, mainly the Student Network. We translated the central website, created and managed social media communication in Hungarian, organised discussions with young people and organised a Carson Coma concert in Šamorín on 28 September, which was attended by hundreds of young people.
The aim of the Maradok / Chcem tu zostať campaign was to convince young people that their vote counts and that they should vote in the elections.
The main initiators of the campaign were Občianska platforma pre demokraciu, Memo 98, Nadácia otvorenej spoločnosti (Open Society Foundation) and Nadácia Pontis (Pontis Foundation). The campaign was strictly non-partisan. It was not directed against any political party or candidate and did not express support for any political party or candidate. It was a civic mobilisation campaign to support the democratic system, to encourage young people to take an interest in public affairs and to participate in elections.
Our colleague Andrea Lelovics participated in the drafting of the Strategy for the Development of Culture on the Territory of the Trnava Self-Governing Region in the Years 2023 – 2027, which was implemented in a participatory way by the Regional Office. This included meetings in Hungarian with representatives of non-formal culture, facilitated by Andrea, and formulating the strategic priorities for the promotion and development of Hungarian culture and multiculturalism in the county. These were presented by Andrea to members of the County Self-Management Committee on 30 May.
The Focus on Impact project was implemented under the ERASMUS+ programme in partnership with the Hungarian social enterprise Fruit of Care in 2021-22. The primary objective of the project was to promote sustainability, also known as positive and sustainable social/environmental impact generation, in a cross-sectoral way, with a focus on supporting collaboration between corporate and socially focused organisations in Hungary and impact-focused decision-making and community building by individual and family (social) investors in Slovakia.
The Forum Regional Development Centre has developed a new service package for individuals, municipalities and small and medium-sized enterprises financing social impact, called SIGNIFINANCE, based on the Ecosystem Map developed with international experts and the focus group surveys and in-depth interviews conducted in the framework of the Focus on Impact project.
CivilMap (within the Forum Institute consortium)
With the creation of CivilMap – a database of Hungarian NGOs in Slovakia in 2021-22, the Forum Institute and the Round Table of Hungarians in Slovakia responded to the lack of a database of minority-related NGOs and associations. The database is interactive and accessible to the public in most of its functions. In its development, experience with similar projects has been taken into account, and the categories and questions have been formulated in line with Slovak and international standards, in order to make the database user-friendly and easy to understand for both domestic and foreign stakeholders. Data collection has so far been carried out in the Western Slovakia region. As a starting point we used the database of NGOs of the Slovak Ministry of Interior. This includes the category “Hungarian”, however, it is not a reliable classification. Even the authors of the register could not answer the question of how the organisations were categorised. Therefore, we checked all registered organisations by district and, based on the information available online, we created a list of organisations that we considered to have a Hungarian connection. We then contacted them by phone or email. The data was collected in two ways, either by the enquirer recording the data over the phone or by the organisations themselves submitting it in the form of a Google Form. In this way, data from 228 NGOs in the Western Slovakia region were collected.
The organisations contacted responded positively to the initiative and were willing to cooperate. Their feedback confirmed the assumptions on which the project was based: the organisations know little about each other, but there is a great need to get to know each other and to cooperate.
SocIn Beszélgetések (SocIn Talks) (within the Forum Institute consortium)
The long-term goal of the SocIn project was to develop new podcast services within the Forum Institute, focusing on social innovation and social entrepreneurship. The main element of the project was the creation of a podcast studio in the Forum Institute’s headquarters in Šamorín. An online SocIn conference was also realised, connecting key actors in the field of social innovation and social entrepreneurship for 5 hours. The project was funded by the Interreg Slovakia-Hungary programme and implemented in 2022.
Šamorínčan – cooperating with a local Slovak organisation for our common town
In 2020-2021, we supported the Šamorínčan Civic Association’s project Šamorínčan – an informed and engaged citizen who wants to live in the region. In this framework, we organised an online training with Dušan Ondrušek, senior trainer of PDCS, on depolarisation, online discussions with representatives of the city office Občan sa pýta – Kérdez a polgár (The Citizen is Asking), and a walk in the centre of Šamorín led by public space consultant Zora Pauliniová, using elements of participatory planning to collect citizens’ opinions on the places visited and their ideas for improvements.
EDUBOX
The EDUBOX project was a continuation of the “Karantema” project and was implemented in 2020 with the support of the Slovak Ministry of Education. In the framework of the project, we collected and organised a database of good practices and active educators during the quarantine period. The database is available at www.edubox.sk.
Start(up)Suli (Start(up)School)
In May 2020, we invited Hungarian secondary school students from Slovakia to compete in a competition where their school teams looked for entrepreneurial ideas to solve social problems. Almost 300 people watched the preparatory online videos and 46 students from 8 secondary schools participated in the one-day online workshop. Read more …
Házisuli (Home school)
The short films “Házisuli”, produced in the framework of the Hungarian Broadcast of Slovak Radio and Television, were aimed at supporting the work of primary school teachers and parents in the quarantine situation caused by COVID-19. Andrea Lelovics facilitated the programme planning meetings between the RTVS Hungarian Broadcasting crew and the teachers featured in the films. The films can be viewed here.
Karantéma (The Quarantine Topic)
In an extraordinary online hackathon-type creative workshop, teachers, students, parents and professionals explored the most pressing issues of Hungarian virtual education in Slovakia on 4 April 2020. More than 50 educators participated in the first Karantéma event in the country, initiated and coordinated by FRDC. Read more …