Inequalities between the settlements
In addition to disadvantaged situations lived through personally (physical disabilities, mental disabilities, excluded status), the everyday life and development capability of a society is negatively influenced by those group-type disadvantages that affect a smaller or bigger community day by day. Marginalised social status and being part of an excluded group of people represent special disadvantages not only for these groups of people but it is a loss for the society as a whole.
The geographical regions labelled as regions with multiple disadvantages gather a great array of personal disadvantages and disadvantages deriving from social position. The regions that are characterised by a number of negative social, economic and demographic indicators are present in large numbers in Hungary today.
The different, smaller or bigger geographical areas called disadvantaged regions often show lot of similarities in their disadvantages, besides the numerous differences.
Disadvantages
- Their economic indicators lag far behind of not only the indicators of developed regions but also of the national average. In practice, it also means high unemployment rate, low level of productivity and unhealthy economic structure. The main source of living of those who live in these areas is public work, because there are only very few job opportunities nearby and the available labour-market offer is usually only limited to agricultural seasonal work.
- Their human infrastructure is underdeveloped and they suffer from especially great disadvantages in the area of human services. In practice, it means the lack and/or the big distance of health-care, official/administrative and cultural infrastructure serving the settlement. The positions of district medical doctors are vacant, the inhabitants have to travel a lot to access official administrative services, there is no school, the house of culture is either deteriorated or, even if it was refurbished, the local government has no money to heat it and even the priest/pastor comes from a remote place.
- The transportation infrastructure suffers from great deficiencies. The majority of the groups of settlements is far (20-30 kilometres) away from the district seats providing basic services. Transportation problems further deepen the problem. The roads are in bad shape and are not suitable to travel, and public transport is rare, random and expensive. Most of the inhabitants, due to poverty, cannot afford to have a car.
- As a consequence of lasting disadvantaged situation, the social structure is significantly transformed and distorted. High rate of migration from the villages is typical. Age composition shows that elderly people are over-represented and their ratio is increasing. If we examine the data of the 2011 census referring to such regions, we find astonishing numbers when we compare the data on the level of education and qualification. More than 50% of the population did not even finish the elementary school or as a maximum finished the elementary school. The rate of people having a university/college degree is very low. Regarding the sociological composition of the society, it is also a fact not to be hidden, that the ratio of the Roma population is constantly increasing within the population of these regions. The child-birth traditions of the Roma people open the gap in the local society which results in the fact that an increasing proportion of the children born belongs to this group of the population. The schools of these settlements are more and more segregated. The vast majority of the non-Roma population take their children to the schools of the neighbouring, bigger settlements.
- The conditions of the communities in the villages often show an incomplete picture. Religious communities were dismantled where the priest or the pastor does not live in the village. Self-organising cultural communities (circles, amateur art groups) were terminated or only vegetate in the lack of community space and/or experts. In general, we can conclude that parallel with the growth of poverty, the need for community existence is decreasing under the pressure of daily subsistence problems. There are hardly any registered NGOs at these settlements. Social confidence is vanishing.
In summary: When it comes to disadvantageous situation in the settlements, we are confronted with a group of multiple problems that negatively influence the life of people living there and are often coupled with personal disadvantages.
Changing the conditions of the social (partly natural as well, that is a possible and often a necessary option) environment of these regions, namely the rehabilitation of the region is a long-term task consisting of several factors and requiring coordinated actions. The preconditions for this are the following:
- Uniform social and economic policy, wording the same objectives for a long term and considering the rise of these groups of settlements important.
- Planned, targeted, coordinated and lasting involvement of external financial resources.
- Development of social and economic factors in synergy.
- Continuous and increasingly wide involvement of the local communities to support the development processes. It includes the reintegration of the destroyed communities that can be reorganised along the lines of existing interests, and the communities that grow out of the articulation of new needs and new interests.
- Cooperation among the decision-makers, economic actors and local communities. Permanent, long-term cooperation among the interested parties of the different areas in the form of networks.
- Establishment of harmony between the personal and community interests that creates the atmosphere of public social confidence.
Regarding community disadvantages, it is evident that launching the local development processes often exceeds the human and resource capacities of the individual settlements. It is not possible for them to hire a trained person managing the local processes and organising local community culture. The deficiencies of the communities at the level of the settlements represent deficiencies also at organisational level.
In this situation, it seems to be evident that cooperation among the settlements is the one way to do it. The easiest solution seems to be that several settlements cooperating with each other employ an expert with adequate qualification. However, being aware of the wage disadvantages existing in the cultural sphere and the fact that trained young workforce is unwilling to move to and live at these disadvantaged settlements, it is quite unlikely that this would give a mass solution to the problem.
Involvement of local forces can be a solution if cooperation within the settlement is manifest not in the division of working time but in the innovation of developments, common provision of resources and constant network-type cooperation.
Winning the confidence of communities living in poverty is not an easy task for the outsiders. Consequently, we can rather expect from this outsider person professional and methodological support and/or the function of an ‘external eye’.
Advantages and possibilities
The advantages seem to be evident. A local person does not have to fight against the lack of confidence resulting from being unknown. At the same time, authenticity that can be obtained and achieved during the development processes, may offer the possibility for the execution of efficient work in the settlements.
Consequently, we can offer as a possible model the development system for the settlements and sub-regions that is based on the following principles:
- Local actors of the development processes are local people and known personalities.
- Their local actions progress according to a model embedded into a wider social environment and elaborated in details. Namely, in the case of the disadvantaged settlements presented above, establishment and development of regional-level cooperation is one of the starting points of the development process.
- The training choice of Cselekvő közösségek (Acting communities) supports local activities. However, additional, well thought-over training supporting the activities and processes in practice and consisting of elements that refer and react to local needs is also necessary. Thus, it is worthwhile to organise training modules that are adequate to and comply with the local characteristics.
- Cooperation network operational among several settlements partly means permanent interactive relationship among the team members working in the settlements. It has to be completed with the cultural community development mentoring activity offered by the Cselekvő közösségek
- From the very beginning, network cooperation strives to assure sustainability so that it is based on the satisfaction of local needs. Furthermore, it is based on the common financial burden-bearing capabilities of the settlements and the development of their possibilities to involve
Poverty indicators interpreted in several different ways and diverse interpretation of the characteristics of disadvantageous situations make it impossible to tell, precisely, how many people suffer from disadvantages in Hungary. The same way, we cannot tell exactly how many compatriots of ours live in regions that are characterised by all the deprivations. However, it is a fact that fundamental civil rights, including the right for culture, have to be guaranteed also for those people who live in these regions. If this is not the case, the regions losing their population, becoming uninhabited, impoverished and constantly declining in their cultural level will be lost for the Hungarian society. If we think about the fate and future of our nation with responsibility, we should not lose sight of the idea that ‘we cannot surrender the creative force of any of our fellow-citizens’.
This article based on the following document: