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You are here: > DETERMINE Key Outcomes > Innovative Approaches > Raising awareness for planning healthy, Hungary
(Hungary)
Raising awareness for planning healthy and sustainable houses - amongst a segregated Roma community living in Debrecen, Hungary
Projekt Summary
In 2002 the Faculty of Public Health of the University of Debrecen initiated a community development project with a segregated Roma community living in Debrecen. Initial meetings with the community explored the most important issues in their everyday life. Emerging from this were factors such as a lack of indoor running water, electricity, substandard housing conditions, pollution, lack of access to roads, unemployment, and illiteracy. Subsequent meetings were dedicated to issues that the community wanted to address, such as legal issues related to housing and property rights, consumer rights, political representation of Roma in Hungary, developing a sense of community, literacy courses, as well as writing and negotiation skills.
18 months after initiation of this project the community submitted and won an application to fund the environmental cleanup of the settlement. However, the city initiated eviction of the community in 2005. Since then a wide range of avenues, including legal action, correspondence and personal negotiations with local and national stakeholders and international Roma rights organizations, press releases have been used to postpone eviction and identify alternative housing arrangements. A consortium was established - led by the Faculty of Public Health and Opre Roma - including a number of stakeholders to address issues of housing, employment and education. The community established a civil organization named Opre Roma Association led by community members (www.opreromadmk.hu), and prepared booklets describing the community’s situation for fundraising.
At present, the Association is in a process of negotiation with Habitat for Humanity and the City Government of Debrecen to initiate a social housing project in conjunction with training and employment for all deprived families living in any of the segregated communities in the city. However, the potential site of the housing project is presently home to another segregated Roma community which is considerably mistrustful of Opre Roma and its plans. Meetings have been organized to let members of the two communities meet and get to know each other and present and discuss plans regarding housing.
Funding from the DETERMINE project will provide an opportunity to advance previous efforts for community planning and raise environmental awareness that is vital for planning sustainable and healthy houses.
Project Aims
- To raise awareness in the community towards environmental, energy and health-behavioural issues and their interconnectedness.
- To produce community plans for sustainable, energy-saving and health-conducive social housing.
- To produce plans for social housing that can be constructed immediately.
Objectives
- Produce architectural plans for social housing which can be constructed immediately.
- Positive changes in participants’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviour regarding environmental, energy and health issues and their interrelatedness. This will be measured by a survey looking at attitudes, knowledge, behaviour, and health status conducted among participants. This survey will be repeated at the end of the project to reveal any change that the project might elicit.
- Undertake workshops to the following areas and feed back attendance, photographs and drawings as part of the programme evaluation:
- Nyírerdő Forestry Company, Debrecen plant
- City Waterworks
- A regular sewage and bio-treatment plant
- City Electric Power Station
- City Natural Gas Plant
- City garbage treatment plant (AKSD Company)
- Csurgó (Habitat project)
- Máriahalom (bio-village)
Why is this innovative?
This project was deemed to be innovative for the following reasons:
- It is a bottom-up approach based on the needs of the local community.
- It involves a wide partnership between the local government, the Roma Self-Government of the City of Debrecen, the civil organisation consisting of community members and members of the research sector, and international organisations. In addition, it is using private funding to aid project development.
- It links together housing and the environment with health.
- Environmental and energy awareness is generally low in Hungary and projects on this topic are considered to be relatively innovative.
Why is this relevant to the social determinants of health?
- Increased knowledge and awareness of environmental factors, housing conditions and energy can have positive indirect and direct impact on health.
- Focussing on housing looks at living conditions as a determinant of health rather than simply focussing on health.
© 2009 Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) | last update: 2010-01-14