Keywords

1 Introduction

The project (un)Attractive? II was about applying a ‘structured dialogue’ as part of a broader development project in the Hungarian districts of Orosháza and Szarvas. The title of the projects alludes to the public image of rural areas as being unattractive, which, according to the organisers, fails to recognise the potential of these regions. The districts of Orosháza and Szarvas are peripheral and rural areas and located in the country’s southeast, close to the border with Romania (European Commission 2022a). The project was carried out between June 2019 and May 2020 by the Federation of Children’s and Youth Municipal Councils with the youth in the region as the main target group. This was already the second cycle of the project funded by Erasmus+. The first had a similar format but was organised in rural districts around Budapest (Gyiöt 2018).Footnote 1

The Federation of Children’s and Youth Municipal Councils is a non-profit organisation based in Budapest. Founded in 1996, it aims at coordinating all local child and youth municipal councils (LCYM) in Hungary. Its main purpose is to represent the interests of all local youth governments, to give professional advice and to organise meetings and trainings for newly founded LCYMs (Salto-Youth 2022). The overall focus is to encourage youth to participate and to empower them. This is realised by applying informal learning methods within diverse programmes. While the organisation is rather small with an active core of seven people,Footnote 2 it cooperates with several other associations and individuals. Most of its projects are based in smaller cities, with less than 35,000 inhabitants. Even though the organisation’s office is located in Budapest, the projects are to a large extent realised in cooperation with local actors, mainly with the municipalities.

2 General Local and Regional Environment

The context conditions for organising projects in Hungary vary strongly across the regions and also across rural areas. The areas surrounding Budapest are reasonably well connected by public transport to Hungary’s capital with its 1.8 million inhabitants. Access to public transport is much more difficult in Békés county where the project was carried out. Here, the settlements are more fragmented. The biggest town is Békéscsaba with 60,000 residents.

The centrally located districts closer to Budapest have a much higher living standard (OECD 2022).Footnote 3 From the first cycle of the project around Budapest, the organisation reports that the people in this region were more satisfied and had less concerns regarding their lives. In the southern districts, the living standards are much lower, and unemployment rates are higher (KSH 2022). Here, people are more involved in coping with basic everyday problems. In the rural areas, particularly young people with lower education and ethnic minorities are prone to unemployment. For them it is also harder to move away. They are often employed in a state-funded public work programme, obligating them to accept work offered by the state in order to receive social benefits. In the southern part of the county, the overall number of people in this programme is over three times as high as that in the Budapest region (see p. 19 in KSH 2020).

In general, the organisation has had the impression that conversation and dialogue with the youth is not much valued in Hungary and is not established within the whole educational system. Often, basic preconditions for youth activities, like spaces for meeting and information about the possibilities of taking action, are missing. Like most Hungarians, young people in Hungary have a positive view of the EU (see pp. 7 and 22 in European Commission 2022b), but a substantial share of first-time voters supports the FIDESZ-KDNP, which frequently rails against the EU. The overall electoral turnout in the elections of the European Parliament is rather low in Hungary. In this environment, the interest of young people in politics and their participation rate are also rather weak.Footnote 4

3 The Project

The project idea of the Federation of Children’s and Youth Municipal Councils was based on the observation that some Hungarian municipalities have difficulties to involve young people in certain discussions. The project was designed to help the communities to build their capacities for youth dialogue and to initiate and establish measures to involve the youth in policy-making and decisions which directly affect them. In doing so, it was intended to link the dialogue with the principles of youth work. For the organisation, this meant that the dialogue had to be conducted in a bottom-up and nonhierarchical way.

The project was active and present in five municipalities of the two regions. The organisation did not have the competence to establish such a dialogue on its own but could only support the municipalities in building the capacities for a structured dialogue with the youth, hence being dependent on their motivation and drive. Thus, creating a partnership with a local government was an essential precondition for reaching the project aims. The organisation asked a local government for a local partner, and the cooperation was fixed in a written agreement between the organisation and the municipality. According to the NGO, this official agreement turned out to be vital for the organisation.

Almost the whole yearly budget of the organisation comes from the EU, since there is overall very little money for youth dialogue or youth work in Hungary. According to the organisation, budgets for such projects have been strongly underfunded especially since the late 2000s, and the few funds that would have been available were not very attractive to it. Therefore, it seemed natural to approach the EU again. However, the project was not designed to promote the EU in the way of advertising but rather to teach about the European context. Upon the proposal, the project was funded with 19,714 Euros which covered all the needed staff, the office, materials, expert fees, activity costs and other expenditures.

Since the project was in its second cycle, organising it was not a completely new experience. Besides, the organisation could build on its long-term experience with youth projects on topics like citizenship, communities and dialogues which were always placed in the context of the EU. The plan of the project was very loosely scheduled as the preconditions vary a lot between the municipalities. In the whole project, the local contact persons in the cooperating municipalities had a very important role for planning the events and contacting the local youth. The project managing organisation provided help on how to reach out to young people. According to its approach towards informal learning, they simply started to build contacts with local youth, without any precondition or specific goal to reach. They just invited young people paying attention to the local circumstances like the time slots of sports school and the possibilities of using the public transportation. They had local meetings with the youth and had discussions with them.

In contrast to the first cycle of the project, the second one was marked by the SARS-Covid pandemic, and, therefore, there were fewer meetings with officials than in the first cycle. The project became in these terms a much more rudimentary youth work programme. The organisation concentrated on offering young people spaces, social activities and discussions on EU topics, but there was little interaction with politicians and less possibilities of exchange with young people from different regions.

The organisation felt that the project’s most important aspect was to give a voice to young people. Therefore, it kept formalities as little as possible, avoided a paternalistic agenda setting from above and tried to establish an atmosphere of trust and appreciation first. In effect, there were no predefined programme points or topics which had to be handled. Instead, the young participants could set the agenda of talks and chose people they wanted to talk to. For the youth in the region where the project took place, higher level politicians were far away from their reality. Therefore, they did not invite EU actors, although the EU was always a topic in the project. Instead, the project involved decision-makers at the local level.

While almost one third of the organisation’s projects are international and therefore held in English, the (un)Attractive? II project was carried out in Hungarian. The fact that foreign language education in rural areas is not very advanced was a factor for the choice of the project’s makeup and also one of the reasons for not inviting people from Brussels (along with the feeling that EU politicians are far away from their lives).

4 Outcomes

The organisation regards the inclusion and commitment of young people as the main achievements of the project. Students in five municipalities were heard and empowered to become active. Due to its participative character, the young people involved learned to express their ideas and interests. Besides this, the project strengthened awareness of the EU as well as knowledge about it. Local youth conferences as well as two simulation practices were held. Thus, the aim of the project to build and foster cooperation among decision-makers and young people was reached. These measures can serve as good practice models.

For the organisation, this is particularly important in the Hungarian environment where young people are not well addressed and involved at school and in politics. For that reason, it received positive feedback from participants for their approach. However, there was no structured evaluation system applied by the organisation. The long-term effects of the project are difficult to measure. On the one hand, this is due to its short duration and the structure of the project. On the other hand, a systematic evaluation of the effects of certain measures or aspects would need more experts and more funding.

Even after the project ended, the organisation kept in touch with the municipalities where the project was carried out. It therefore knows that out of the five municipalities, only one was continuing to maintain the project measures. This is why it feels that the programme needs to be continued in a comparable way to help communities to strengthen their youth work in the long run.

5 Success Factors

For the organisation, the success factors include experienced personnel, support by the EU in terms of funding, a local basis in terms of contacts, the invitation of decision-makers and the project format and the inclusion of youth dialogue in a regular EU organisation.

The long-time experience of the organisation helped them in applying for funding. In their understanding, applying for EU funds is rather easy, as there are extensive written instructions on how to do it. With the updated Erasmus+ accreditation process, it has become even easier to apply for funds. Previously, single-project applications had taken up quite some time and made planning more uncertain. Generally, the organisation was pleased with the funding schemes and found the application process easy and transparent. Thus, they see themselves as more experienced as they have been involved in funding processes over a long time.

The organisation was also very satisfied with the terms of the funding. They had enough flexibility in using the money. In their experience, the conditions improved over the years in that beneficiaries are freer to decide on what to spend their money. The organisation feels very happy with the new feedback process. They suggested that future funding budgets should be adapted for inflation to avoid becoming increasingly tight over the years.

The organisation also considers that the local basis of projects is also as a success factor. Because the organisation lacked local knowledge, its contact persons in the cooperating municipalities were very important. They had and held contact with the young people in the area and thus functioned as door openers for the organisation. Furthermore, the organisation argues that if a project is tied to a person and not to a municipality or office, the chances of involving motivated local partners are much higher. Ideally, the local contact person is already a youth worker and has established contact with the young people in the community. The local contact person/youth worker can also be the key for the sustainability of a project. The other way around, the organisation experienced that if that person leaves or has no interest in continuing, the programme often ends.

According to the organisation, another success factor is inviting local decision-makers instead of ones on a EU level. Unlike EU officials or politicians, local decision-makers are more a part of the reality of the young participants. In particular, the involvement of key EU actors would tend to create a hierarchy, where the voice of the youth would stand back in relation to it. In the view of the organisation, involving EU actors would be a next step further down the road which would need more information and preparedness. Moreover, this would require a better command of English than the people in the peripheral rural areas of Hungary often have. At this moment, EU institutions and actors are too far away from the regions, and, therefore, inviting them would not be desirable for projects like the one described here. The organisation also finds that it is not so much about teaching the organisational structures or main benefits of the European Union, even though they are important. Instead, projects must be more about the young people themselves and their needs and aspirations. In the experience of the organisation, the involvement of local decision-makers is a more successful approach in that sense and can lead to more practical results.

The need for local embeddedness also refers to the overall makeup of youth projects. While the organisation mentions that, theoretically, there would be a demand for cross-border projects, such projects would need much more information, language skills, preparation and commitments from the participants. In this case, any sort of expansion to an international level might complicate projects for the particular target group of young people in the Hungarian rural areas. Although the organisation does some international cooperation with project partners, travelling out of Hungary is perceived as being very far away from the reality of the people they work with and therefore almost impossible.

Last but not least, the organisation regards the very existence of the framework of the EU youth dialogues as another success factor. It appreciates it as being much in line with its philosophy of making young voices heard. Without the programme, it would be much more difficult to carry out any similar activities in Hungary where the preconditions for youth engagement are not the best. In such an environment, empowerment needs support from outside the country and constant activities. Therefore, the permanent character of the youth dialogues as envisaged by the EU framework and their embeddedness in overall EU policy-making are regarded as essential, even if the impact of it is not always measurable. It creates a climate where the whole topic of youth involvement is valued.

6 Problems and Wishes

The organisation mentioned that compared to its project experience in the districts around Budapest in the first cycle, it faced completely different challenges in the second one conducted in the southern great plains of Békés county. The problems included a more hesitant approach of local officials and partners towards social projects in general and scepticism regarding EU funding of such projects in particular, as well as a worse infrastructural situation in rural areas and a de facto uneven access to the EU and other funding opportunities.

The hesitation of the regional partners towards social projects was different from the Budapest region. The difference became noticeable in how the people were ready to talk about youth work, community building, structured dialogue and community involvement. Therefore, according to the project organisers, youth projects in the south are faced with much more scepticism. In addition, even though the EU is known in these regions, it is mostly connected with financial support for the large-scale public infrastructural projects of the state. EU-related and EU-funded youth work as offered by the (un)Attractive? II project was a novelty for many of them. Especially in southern rural areas the EU, co-financing of other than infrastructural projects is often met with suspicion. However, the organisation had the experience that scepticism towards EU-related funds, which are not infrastructural, varied strongly across and even within the municipalities.

Additionally, the project had to adapt to the infrastructural shortcomings of certain municipalities. In the southern district, poor public transportation made it hard to find time slots for activities people could attend. In this regard, the organisation had much more work to ensure access to the people. Because of this and the problems associated with the coronavirus, the project became much more a basic youth/social work programme with less opportunities for EU involvement.

While funding opportunities are theoretically available to a wider public, there are de facto differences. Regarding the domestic funding schemes, the organisation feels that applying organisations are treated differently depending on their topics and their political views. The organisation was not very successful with its proposals in the first years and over the last years and explicitly tried to avoid applying for national funding due to a strong disagreement with national politics.

The access to EU funding programmes is biased in another way. According to the organisation, the overall information and representation of the EU is very focused on Budapest. For organisations in the rural areas, getting in touch with EU administration and people, who give inspiration and practical support, seems to be more complicated, especially for individuals who are usually not experienced in funding processes. Therefore, the project organisation suggests to employ more mobile EU representatives to inform more people about the funding possibilities offered by the EU. They argue that direct contact with the people is needed. The EU should therefore have more Erasmus offices than just the one in Budapest. The several existing offices from Europe Direct in Hungary are not working well in the eyes of the organisation. To invest the money they receive from the EU more wisely, they should reach out to the people showing them their possibilities rather than waiting for the people to approach the EU. As they already have money for their programmes, they also need to make it available to the people.

The organisation mentioned additional obstacles for a lot of people from remote rural areas in Hungary. Since foreign language education is poor, a student exchange with other European countries is almost impossible, for example. Furthermore, if there is no information about the EU available in the region or if the economic realities are harsh, then some EU programmes are exclusive, i.e. de facto not accessible to the inhabitants irrespectively of the formal right to participate. Programmes like the ‘DiscoverEU’, theoretically open for anyone from any region of Europe, need more support from the EU. Otherwise, they only reach those who are already privileged in other terms. For metropolitan western youth, the EU is open anyways, the organisation says. In its view, the rural youth from the east however needs more support than the programme offers. While reaching out to the people is maybe more the duty of the member states, the organisation sees the EU as responsible for covering such tasks if neglected by its member states.

At the same time, those who are better informed about the EU funding options so far often find them easily accessible. In this way, according to the project organisation, a lot of NGOs are specialised in applying for money without paying close attention to the contents of the projects and creating a real impact with them.

7 Conclusion

Overall, the organisation is very satisfied with the EU youth dialogues and funding conditions. It will continue their projects in the future and plans on taking part in larger EU programmes. Furthermore, the project organisers feel that their work in Hungary is still very important. Especially the imbalance between the rural areas in the south and around Budapest shows the need for such projects. They strongly identify with Europe and stress that there is much more need for projects involving young people in the European peripheries. While they have some concerns towards the political climate in Hungary, they do not feel that it would hinder them continuing their work. Their goal is to be able to have the organisation a bit more structured in the future.

In conclusion, the organisation gives the advice to listen more to young people. They suggest that the focus should not be so much about involving important actors or teaching the organisational structures and main benefits of the Union but much more about conveying the values of the EU and giving people a voice, especially those ones in remote rural areas. Involving the young people and not deciding above their heads, taking a less paternalistic view on youth work and empowering the youth mean also to be receptive to the de facto uneven access to existing EU programmes. They feel that, ideally, the involvement of young people could take place at an even earlier age than with young adults. In their view, this supports European citizenship and the whole idea of the European Union in the long term.