Hungary tackles child poverty and Roma exclusion in disadvantaged regions
Newsletter 2010-3
Publication date : 2010-09-09
Hungary’s
“Making Things Better for our Children” National Strategy and the related
pilot programme in the micro-region of Szécsény were hailed by peer reviewers
gathered in Budapest
on 27-28 May 2010 as a sign that the inter-generational transmission of
poverty can be overcome, even in the most disadvantaged regions. In a country where one child in 5 lives below 60% of the
median income, the key objectives of the Strategy launched in 2006 are: to significantly reduce the poverty rate of children and their
families and improve children’s chances of continuing studies and
bettering their life prospects; to eliminate extreme forms of child exclusion and segregation,
and; to reform the methods and approaches pursued by
existing institutions, which contribute to the reproduction of poverty and
social exclusion.
The Strategy contains the main policies of a long-term programme,
planned over at least one generation – from 2007 to 2032. Priority groups include the Roma minority and those living
in disadvantaged settlements and regions. Indeed, since the middle of the nineties,
poverty has been increasingly shifting towards the marginalised outer parts of
cities, and even more so to the villages. Nowadays, 66% of poor children live
in villages or small settlements, where they are unable to acquire competitive
schooling or any marketable vocational qualification. Most young people
growing up in these areas are unlikely to find a regular, well-paid job, and
some 20-25% of them are ‘lost’ to society – a situation often passed on to
their own children later down the line. In an attempt to break this cycle of poverty
and social exclusion, one of the National Strategy’s first steps was to launch
a pilot project in Szécsény, one of the country’s most disadvantaged micro-regions
(see box). Incorporating action research elements, the Szécsény
“Give Kids a Chance” Programme has enjoyed considerable success, and has
recently been transferred to ten other micro-regions. Its main elements are: Early skills development, notably through the setting up of Sure
Start Children’s Houses; Integration and development of public education; Youth development assistance to early school-leavers based on
individual plans, youth clubs and youth programmes; Strengthening of individual and community social work in
settlements; Improving parents’ employment prospects, particularly through cooperatives
and better day-care provision for their children; Improving housing conditions. Supported by European funds, the programme should spread
to a further five heavily disadvantaged regions in 2010, and another six in
2011. As seen in Szécsény, breaking the vicious circle of poverty
among generations will entail ending the concentration of Roma children and
students with special needs in “ghetto schools” and promoting cultural change,
not only on the part of the Roma but also in public institutions and in society
in general. Desegregation will not be easy to achieve, given the
geographical concentration of the Roma but, as stressed by reviewers, there
must be a political commitment to desegregation. As well as being unethical, the exclusion of Roma is
economically unsustainable, the Peer Review emphasised. They are the youngest
and fastest-growing demographic segment in a region characterised by falling
birth rates. The sustainability of inclusion strategies will require
a long-term approach that develops people’s capacity and enables them to
decide their own futures. The EU Structural Funds are a key tool for
supporting the Member States in achieving a sustainable impact on the Roma
community. Closing the gap between local activities and national policies is
often difficult, since local action has to fit local circumstances and needs.
Better horizontal coordination is needed among the various ministries,
departments and municipalities to mainstream Roma inclusion into the different
poverty reduction policies and programmes. However, it was emphasised that
mainstreaming should not lead to a loss of Roma cultural identity.
The
rural micro-region of Szécsény, with its 13 settlements – mainly very small or
dead-end villages – totalling 20,000 people, is far from the image of modern
Europe.
The
situation of this micro-region deteriorated significantly after the change of
regime, with the collapse of local agriculture and industry, and the closure
of the big firms in neighbouring towns. By 2005, the area had become one of the
42 most disadvantaged micro-regions of Hungary.
Here,
poverty is twice the Hungarian national average, the unemployment rate is
currently 26.5%, the road network is incomplete, houses are in poor condition
and the educational level of the adult population is far behind the national
level.
It is
therefore no coincidence that Szécsény was chosen to pilot Hungary’s “Give Kids
A Chance” programme, which seeks to reduce child poverty by developing public
education, improving nutrition and healthcare for children, improving housing
conditions and developing employment opportunities for parents. One of the key
elements of the programme is the substantial increase of social and childcare
services available to the local population – whatever their origins.
Although
the strong degree of segregation and the resistance towards governmental
equalisation measures has made the Szécsény Programme difficult to implement,
its democratic and participative approach, and the close cooperation with the
settlements, has enabled some initial successes.
A
network of “Sure Start” houses, offering support to children under the age of
five and their parents, has been developed with EU support. As the EU peer
reviewers saw for themselves in May, the children’s houses are active in skills
development, learning opportunities and health promotion. They also give lifestyle
advice to families and communities, and provide access to computers and
internet to help parents look for job opportunities.
Three
years after the launch of the programme, peer reviewers were able to witness
the pride and emotion of youngsters in one of these children’s houses, as they
received their secondary school certificates. Down the road in another village,
a group of children practised a song with a youth leader. There are few immediate
signs of poverty. “That just goes to show what’s been achieved here,” a
Hungarian expert told visiting peer reviewers. “A few years ago, those young people
wouldn’t have been wearing clean white shirts, and they wouldn’t have been
happy about anything at all. And those children wouldn’t have looked well-fed.”
Nevertheless,
much remains to be done. “You should also remember what you’re not seeing,” the
expert added. “Most of their families live in one-roomed houses, with 5-8
people to a bed. Generally, they have neither a bathroom nor a toilet at home.”Lessons learned
