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Bagázs Public Benefit Association
In November 2009 I started to work as a probation officer in Bag.
In the Roma colony of Bag, the proportion of criminals and drug users In November 2009 I started to work as a probation officer in Bag.
In the Roma colony of Bag, the proportion of criminals and drug users
is exceptionally high within the micro-region.
In May 2010, the Probation Office Service at the Office of Justice
became a cooperative partner of the British
organization Inclusion in its project MOMIE,
where I was trained to organize a peer mentoring program in Hungary.
In July 2010, cooperating with the local Child Welfare Services,
we organized a summer camp here in Bag
for the inhabitants of the Roma colony.
One of the purposes was to get an insight
into the local relations and connections,
and also to popularize volunteer work for the locals.
In October 2010, with the active volunteers,
we founded the Bagázs Public Benefit Association.
A major agenda we set was to apply
non-formal education and volunteer work
in order to enable youth of Bag to identify their own goals,
and to make their own steps to reach these goals
so that they can break free from the constraints
exerted by their social environment.
The Association was registered on 17 January 2011
by the Metropolitan Court of Budapest.
After a two months work of preparation,
we launched our mentor training in February 2011,
in which 10 local peer mentors
and 7 non-peer mentors were trained.
We participated in a three day mentor training in Mátrakeresztes,
where we mentors were trained.
Emő and Saci trained us,
both peer and non-peer mentors.
It was a rather intensive training,
with lots of role playing,
trust games, and team building exercises.
The best experience - it was the whole thing as it was.
It started in February, and since then
I have been through a period, up to even now,
which has been incredible, with incredible experiences all the time.
For four days
we were examining what being a mentor means.
I think that the point in being a mentor is to
help to identify realistic goals to the mentees,
goals that they could not achieve solely by themselves.
Their main task is to meet their mentees
once a week at least for an hour,
and primarily to talk to them about topics
such as drugs, school, crime,
future plans, life circumstances, and family life.
My mentee is Istvan Lakatos. Pisti.
In school he used to get awful grades,
and he was pretty mean to his peers.
We discuss different things,
like what I did in the previous days,
bad things that should be improved.
It is possible to change, really. You can feel it.
You feel in your environment that you changed,
and in family problems, is school, in everything.
For example, we visited the Palace of Wonders in Budapest
and there we played with these...
what they had... silly things.
We went to Gödöllő, and we had ice cream,
and then she visited me,
and it was raining, and then we talked
inside rather than outside...
Such kind of things.
Whenever I went to him,
I was really stressed,
I wanted to start doing drugs and stealing again,
but when I left him I had clean conscience,
I said I don't need this, to get in prison and all,
I'm thankful for him, really, I had been in serious misery.
There was this thing with the weed, and all,
but thank God I managed to put it down,
with the help of Sanyi.
From a certain perspective this is a challenge,
it is a very difficult environment with which you have to cope,
and you have to be strong in certain situations,
but you can gain really a lot from it.
Well, I used to do drugs pretty badly,
I shot up,
but I managed to put it down,
it's been a year since I haven't done a thing like that.
I like children more and more,
I like being with them,
and if I see a child smile then it was worth doing this.
There are still a lot of problematic children here,
and this is what I would like to change.
To show the others, who are not mentors yet,
that we can re-write things.
I learned things here that I wasn't taught at the university.
In order to have a firm grasp on the world
you also have to look at the practical side. In order to have a firm grasp on the world
you also have to look at the practical side.
This has been one of the greatest experiences of my life.
If not the mentoring program, but the fact that
I got involved in the work done for this colony.
I got to know very interesting people, and made friends
with people whom I'd have never met otherwise.
Let me tell you, I've been thinking that
if anywhere, anyone is facing these lot of problems,
I confidently recommend this whole thing
because it is efficient.
And really, if you feel that you are able to give something,
that's an incredible feeling.
In order for us to be able to launch our mentoring program next year, we need Your help too.
Our bank account number is:
10403239-50526583-65761007