Community building in Budapest

Since the MUS-E program was launched in 1994 by Yehudi Menuhin, the targeted groups of the transcultural social-artistic programme were defined according to the “CAT model”, as Children, Artists and Teachers, those individuals that actually take part and benefit directly from the artistic workshops. As time went by, and different national and international projects were born and implemented, we had to realise that the primary agent of socialization, namely the family cannot be excluded from our approach, if we do want to create long-lasting results in the improvement of well-being, and equal opportunities for vulnerable children.

The idea of thinking in the scope of communities is not revolutionary in social work, but to implement it with the help of the MUS-E programme is new and faces many challenges. First of all, we have to realise that parents many times show a lack of interest in the school-life of their children, and it is very hard to attract them and convince them to participate. We had to think and act together with school directors, teachers and artists, gaining inspirations from the best practices of other relevant programs, about what activities could gain their attention and willingness to participate. When we started to work in a school in the socialist type neighbourhood of Budapest in 2018, and our office also moved there, for the first time in our operation we could start dreaming about an own community place, where in the future we can organise family events, workshops and also summer camps for children. We spent one year to build closer, tight and trustful relation with the school, and this autumn we already organised our international meeting of WAC project in a way, that international participants left their creative footprint in the shape of a community painting for the children, that we further developed with parents and children in an open-afternoon joyful session in November. For our biggest surprise, all the targeted 25 kids could enjoy the presence of their parents and siblings. Our aim, for which we want to build a fundraising campaign in 2020, is to co-create the space itself – that is in ruins now – with families, including hand-painted walls using the community paintings, a workshop-room and a renovated child-friendly open-air courtyard. We want create opportunities where families can gain new ideas and real experiences about how to spend time together in a meaningful, free and creative way, and to increase the opportunity that a real and helping community can be formed also in our age and in city-settlements.