“I originally hoped to facilitate community development by providing resources and support. I now see the importance of empowering community members to take an active role in the development process. My goal has shifted towards fostering a sense of agency and self-reliance within the community, encouraging residents to lead their own initiatives and projects.”
Edina is passionate about social justice and her hometown Miskolc in northeastern Hungary. A sociologist by training, she works with Roma children and is also the co-founder of the emerging Miskolc Community Foundation.
She joined CA to gain learning on how to build a community of diverse people around a common goal.
She and her team interviewed residents about what changes they would like to see in their city and held varied events to encourage interaction. Over time, her engagement in CA spurred her to shift from focusing on funding immediate improvements to supporting resident-led initiatives and building networks and a sense of ownership in the community.
Edina manages an after-school programme for Roma children at the North-East Passage Cultural and Academic Association, which strives to fight against social injustice and discrimination and to build bridges between the majority and minority populations and urban and rural residents.
Miskolc, with a population of 144,000, is the fourth largest city in Hungary. Miskolc has a past stigmatized by the socialist era and forced industry which has caused a huge depopulation, poverty and hopelessness since the 1990s. Unfortunately, this process still has not finished, however, our heritage and natural values are endless. Passivity in social issues and public affairs is characteristic of Miskolc – as can be felt in general in the country. However, contrary to this, it can also be observed that if there are some important initiatives in the city, such as the Participation Program launched by the local government last year, that can activate local people.
In recent years, Edina has helped Miskolc residents explore their local heritage, identity and relationship to urban spaces through several community projects. In 2022, she and a friend began working towards a more permanent community support mechanism: a community foundation serving the city of Miskolc. A handful of other likeminded residents joined their informal group and they received seed funding from the Roots and Wings community foundation support organisation. Our goal for ourselves and the community is to make Miskolc attractive and livable, keeping young people here and create an atmosphere that could convince them to come back, getting to know and strengthening the sense of identity of Miskolc and, in addition, also the neighborhoods, boosting urban social and cultural life.
In September 2023, they officially established the community foundation… Edina shifted from being the coordinator to becoming the foundation’s chairwoman. The foundation forged a formal relationship with the municipality, including cooperation on sustainability efforts.
The community foundation is to serve all of Miskolc and at first, Edina’s informal group planned on involving people from across the entire city in its development. However, discussions in CA about asset-based approaches and the importance of the neighbourhood level, where it is easier to facilitate face-to-face interactions and develop relationships, led them to focus on one city district. Initially, our project aimed at community engagement throughout Miskolc without a specific geographical focus. As the project evolved, we decided to narrow the scope to the downtown district of Miskolc to make our efforts more manageable and impactful. This change allowed us to concentrate on a specific community, build stronger relationships, and achieve concrete results.
Over a 6-month period, Edina and the other informal group members interviewed residents to learn about their relationship to Miskolc, why they live there and the problems they see in the city. She also hoped that the interviews would reveal community connectors – both individuals and organisations – who could help them reach a diverse cross-section of people in Miskolc. According to our hopes, we will find a circle of residents/businesses/NGOs who all share a vision that the district can develop and become more citizen-friendly relying on the communities’ resources. This can initiate community actions – e.g. events, restoration or implementation of community spaces.
Over time, they saw the need to learn how a more diverse range of residents felt about the downtown area. To do so, they developed a nuanced engagement plan combining varied in-person events and online outreach. They invited the people they had interviewed, and others, to an informal Community Dialogue in December 2023. About 25 residents and local business owners came to share their thoughts on improving the downtown area. Active listening was at the heart of Edina’s approach to these discussions.
In parallel, they designed an online questionnaire to map a wider pool of residents’ ideas, needs and resources and gauge their interest in participating in in-depth dialogues exploring their visions for the city. They distributed the questionnaire through social media and NGO partners which have strong trust-based connections to different community groups. By leverage the NGOs’ networks, Edina’s group was able to reach a broader audience.
Next, Edina and the other group members organised a meeting with local business owners who had expressed interest in becoming more involved. Ten local businesspeople came. Edina introduced the downtown fund campaign that they were launching to raise money for improvement projects, and opened a discussion about how the business owners could contribute to the community foundation’s mission and communicate its goals. The business owners showed excitement about the downtown fund and about the community centred approach. Some appreciated the opportunity to engage with new people: It was a new experience talking to all of you from the nonprofit sector. I feel I’m stepping out of my comfort zone and broadening my horizon.
That same month, Edina and her team took part in the Nonprofit Street at the Miskolc Food Festival. Over the course of the event, they engaged about 100 people in conversations and activities, asking about their ideas and opinions about possible community actions or development in the downtown.
In April 2024, they concluded the downtown fund campaign. They invited donors and others to a celebratory event that drew about 40 people from local businesses, NGOs and the municipality. Bringing together these diverse groups, each with its own interests, was a challenge. They designed a brainstorming session using the World Café approach in which small groups of event participants discussed how the fund should contribute to downtown initiatives focused on making the area greener, creating community engagement opportunities and involving youth. This highlighted shared interests in making the community more liveable.
During the late spring and summer they continued fundraising and engaging with residents around their ideas and needs in relation to the downtown area. They held a wine tasting fundraiser at a winery owned by one of the engaged business owners, three open wine cellar events and a picnic with a focus on collecting ideas and information on the needs of community members. The process of engaging with residents, businesses and NGOs revealed a number of resources that the foundation can draw on. We have built connections with NGOs, they have offered us rooms for events free of charge. For the Cookie and Bubble Party – a local business offered free ice-cream for the event.
With the money raised through the downtown fund campaign and matching from Roots and Wings, the community foundation was able to open its first grant call for community improvement projects. Four informal groups and three civil organisations submitted applications. Four projects were selected for support: renovation of a passageway, which will serve as a space for art exhibitions and NGOs to showcase their work; the Yarn Guerrilla Operation, which involves decorating trees with crocheted creations; and two cultural initiatives.
Edina notes that awareness of the foundation has grown in Miskolc. Residents are beginning to understand the foundation’s mission as well as the value of community-based initiatives. More people are recognising that the foundation is here to serve as a platform for addressing local needs and strengthening community ties, which is an essential step in building long-term impact.
Engaging youth actively has been difficult. Edina hypothesised that this might be due to the nature of formal events that were not as appealing to younger audiences. In response, the group is developing a youth-specific activity for 2025.
Another challenge has been maintaining volunteer engagement, both in the informal group closest to the community foundation and among the wider circle of engaged residents. We tried to heighten volunteers’ long-term motivation by providing opportunities for them to lead activities and share their ideas to give them a sense of ownership.
Relatedly, the demands of volunteering have been an issue among the informal group members. Many have struggled to balance their voluntary work with personal and professional commitments. Finding enough time to dedicate to the project without compromising other responsibilities remains difficult.
Through CA and her interactions with people in the community, Edina has recognised how vital active listening can be. I learned the importance of active listening in community engagement—asking questions that open new perspectives and encourage deeper reflections. This approach allowed us to build trust with community members and I understood that this is a process that does not bring instant solutions. A real-life example of this approach is a situation with one of our funders. Initially, this funder had been observing our activities from a distance and expressed that he did not have the capacity to be actively involved. However, over time, he was inspired to propose a new idea for a district fund and to work on community programs and initiatives aimed at developing the historic Avas Hill.
Relatedly, Edina came to understand that building trust is a process that doesn’t bring immediate results but forms an essential foundation for long-term community building. I initially aimed to create immediate and visible improvements in the community through our projects. Over time, our aims shifted towards building long-term sustainability and strengthening community networks. One significant change was prioritising not just immediate community actions but fostering a sense of ownership among residents to encourage sustained engagement beyond our direct involvement.
So the whole approach is kind of holistic. It consists of different types of people, with different backgrounds, and we have to accept this thing as a whole and deal with it as a whole. If it is slow, and not moving, you can force things to happen. Seeing communities as individuals because they all have their own personalities, they are not homogenous, they are heterogenous. This approach gives me more empathy and patience to tackle people and communities. It gave me more acceptance. So I don’t get impatient or angry. We have to accept and respect others’ boundaries, also let them evolve by themselves, asking clever questions with active listening and these kinds of practices.
Looking ahead, Edina’s group wants to build informal relationships with residents outside of the downtown. They will start by finding the community connectors and through them, trying to reach out to a wider circle of people. They will then invite residents to share their ideas and brainstorm through community workshops, which have proven to be an effective engagement format in Miskolc. They are also planning a networking event for businesses and NGOs that draws on a speed meeting method Edina experienced at a CA workshop.
They also want to intensify their efforts to engage diverse groups in the community. While we have made efforts in reaching diverse groups, we feel the need for further steps to make our project more inclusive and representative of the entire community. We are developing specific programs that address the needs and interests of different demographic groups within the community.
Inspired by an approach shared in CA, one of these specific programs will be a photovoice project called MiskolcVibes – The Voice of the Youth Through Pictures. It will aim to involve youth in expressing how they see their identity within the city.
Watch a video about Edina’s work.
