The 1 Hungary Initiative is beyond a difficult and busy year. By Roma intellectuals It was born in 2019 The aim of the NGO is to map the issues of the Roma and disadvantaged settlements in the mainstream political discourse, and to create a more peaceful, hateful public discourse in Hungary. The co-founder of the organization, Béla Rácz (whose writings appear regularly in Mérce), stated in his annual assessment that the epidemic situation had fundamentally defined this year for the country and the Roma society in it.

According to him, as a non-governmental organization, 1 Hungary also had to take responsibility for controlling the epidemic and promoting vaccination against the coronavirus. To this end, the National Roma Self-Government, aHang, Dikh Tv, Romnet, the Roma Press Center, the Civil College Foundation and the System Level have joined.Shut up so you can live”, Supported by the Maltese Charity Service and the Prime Minister’s Commissioner for Equal Opportunities, to keep people living in the 100 most disadvantaged municipalities in the country registering to be vaccinated.

As Ernő Kadét, a member of the Roma Press Center, explains in the annual evaluation video below, this campaign was launched to provide access to vaccines for disadvantaged, and in many cases Roma, citizens who are deprived of “lack of knowledge and lack of internet”. they can. register for vaccination.

To this end, volunteers with a three-week campaign have internet tablets on the streets of towns to help citizens register, who have later been notified of the expected date of their vaccination. The volunteers also helped to register for the vaccination from house to house and at the counters in the center of the settlements. They have also been trained by health professionals to provide adequate information to those who are afraid of the possible side effects of the vaccine.

As the video shows, “Shut up to live!”During just 3 weeks, civilians reached 32,000 people and 13,428 of them registered to be vaccinated.

product of the 1 Hungary Initiative Together with the Association Included here has delivered packages containing masks, vitamins and durable food to hundreds of families. The organization also commemorated important dates for Roma, such as International Roma Day on April 8, Roma Resistance Day on 16 May, and Porajmos’ Day of Remembrance on August 2, also known as the Roma Holocaust. In addition, 1 Hungary wrote a letter to the Czech ambassador to Budapest in a video in which police officers from the city of Teplice kneeled on the neck of a handcuffed Stanislav Tomas of Roma descent, who later died of the health consequences of the brutal police action.

The 1 Hungary Initiative also took an active part in the opposition pre-election. The organization organized one and a half dozen public forums and candidate debates on Roma issues. As Adrienn R.-Balog, another co-founder of the organization, said, these events were of great significance, for example, in the debate in the Szeged-centered constituency No. 2 in Csongrád County, which started in the right colors but was inferior to Edvin Mihálik. Péter Tóth publicly apologized for the term “gypsy crime” with a racist overtone, which he and his partner had often used in the past.

organization The members of the organization discussed from the five prime ministerial candidates in the pre-election campaign what specific ideas they want to fight for the emancipation of the Roma society in Hungary and to end the stigma, exclusion and deprivation that affect them.

These conversations proved to be very testifying. It turned out, for example, that András Fekete-Győr, who started in Momentum, had a fully-fledged Roma program, while he had a false stereotypical image of Hungarian Gypsies and kept the measures of the Orbán government such as public works and school guards. According to the members of the 1 Hungarian community, the policies do not solve the social problems affecting the Roma, they only “refeud the rural people” and act in a situation where they can be solved by social workers and mental health professionals.

1 Péter Márki-Zay, the winner of the election of the Prime Minister-designate, drew a picture of a politician who does not want to break with the right-wing narratives of the Gypsyist issue and lived a stereotype about Gypsies.

The two candidates who defined themselves as leftists, Klára Dobrev (Democratic Coalition) and Gergely Karácsony (Dialogue), spoke about a somewhat more specific, less problematic Roma program at the 1 Hungary Initiative, but while Dobrev tried to avoid until then, in the case of Gergely Karácsony, Dániel Rézműves Benjámin (a regular author of Mérce), on behalf of the organization, claimed that many of his commitments concerning the Roma had not yet been implemented since he was elected mayor.

As Béla Rácz explains in the video of the year, these pre-selection debates were much needed simply because

“It is very difficult to get into mainstream communication in Hungary today and even more difficult as a Roma.”

In its video for the next year’s evaluation, the 1 Hungary Initiative commemorated the members who lost this year, many of whom fell victim to the coronavirus. In conclusion, Béla Rácz asked the decision makers to:

to create a Hungary where we can all be equal and happy.