The project targets a deprived, segregated area of the city with a high rate of unemployed, underprivileged families, among them Roma. The project has an integrated nature by combining hard and social infrastructure developments and establishing multi-sectoral services in the target area in order to tackle the complex problem of the local community. Building up a wide partnership and actively involving the local residents are proved to be main conditions to the success of the project.
Executive summary
The Herbolya Old-settlement project targeted a deprived, segregated area of a post-industrial city, Kazincbarcika situated in the most depressed region of Hungary. The project, which is still going on with the implementation of the social project elements, has a strong integrated nature by establishing hard and social infrastructure and bringing together multi-sectoral services to the target area, which were hardly accessible for the locals before. The integrated approach allowed for the opportunity to attain synergy effects of the services and thus to improve the empowerment and the integration of the local underprivileged community. The project is based on a broad partnership including public providers (social and health services) and a religious NGO rooted in the target area and providing originally vocational education for disadvantaged. There have been significant steps made toward a more participative approach related to the involvement of the local disadvantaged people but in this respect there is still a way to go. However the results achieved so far show that only projects that include the main stakeholders and the residents themselves can reach the wider circle of the community, especially the most marginalised ones.
Regarding the sustainability of the project a main concern is the affordability of the maintenance costs of the increased housing quality as despite the training and employment programs there is no job to find. The sustainability issue also arises on the side of service providers both public and non-governmental as because of the economic crisis the maintenance of the established infrastructure and services means a more considerable burden than it was expected in the planning period. Nevertheless a key player of the project is the NGO – the Don Bosco School – which can bring substantial external resources in order to finance the services on the long run.
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