Budapest Cultural Centre
Culture and community for all age groups Since 1979
„For the City of Budapest” award
for the organisation, support and development of the community and cultural activities as well as for the development of numerous professional services.
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Budapest Cultural Centre
Dear Reader You are reading the brochure of the Budapest Cultural Centre (BCC). Our institution belongs to one of the most extensive cultural organization networks in Hungary. In Hungary, since the Parliamentary Act of 1997 it is a mandatory duty of the community’s local government authority to support community cultural activities in the given locality. The local public partakes in various forms of self education and community cultural education through cultural institutions, public benefit organizations and NGOs funded by the local governmental authorities. The access to community culture is facilitated by the combined effort of nearly 3000 community cultural institutions and thousands of NGOs. Regional (i.e. county) government authorities contribute to the advancement of local community culture and the activities of NGOs and cultural managers by funding various institutions and organizations that offer professional consultancy and community cultural services. In the capital, these responsibilities were assigned to the Budapest Cultural Centre by the Budapest Local Government. Katalin Margittai Director
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Introduction Art displays and programmes
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Budapest Cultural Centre
Introduction
Established in 1979 by the General Assembly of the City of Budapest, the Budapest Cultural Centre is the professional service institution of the community cultural institutions, civil organizations and communities of the city, yet its services are offered to the widest professional audience as well as to the general public. We have more than 120 thousand visitors every year, and the number of people who rely on our telephone information and consultancy service or visit our web pages is equally high.
Art displays and programmes
We host and organize a wide range of art programmes including conferences, professional workshops and courses of amateur photography, folk dance and creative arts for adults and children alike. In our gallery a fresh art exhibition is presented every third week, featuring various amateur artists (http://galeria.bmknet.hu). We usually organize programmes in connection with folk dance and the visual arts, but our institution gladly hosts popular poetry and prose recitation competitions, folk art exhibitions and festivals for theatrical groups or folk musicians. We offer series of lectures on various topics including literature, music, theatre, art and socio-cultural history. We host three choirs and a folk dance ensemble. (www.bartokdance.hu)
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Information services and websites Professional workshops and publications 6
Budapest Cultural Centre
Information services and websites
The BCC collects, processes and publishes professional work related information to cultural managers as well as information on art and community cultural activities to the public. Besides the BCC homepage (www.bmknet.hu), our institution edits several websites on various subjects. Turning out a great success, our website Kirándul.hu (www.kirandul.hu) presents information on the green areas in and around Budapest, including maps with detailed descriptions that are designed to aid people with special needs as well. Our site Kaleidoskop (www.kaleidoskop.hu) suggests various cultural programmes, offers interesting review articles and interviews, and introduces new CDs and books to the visitors. The “Mini Tipp” database presents information on children camps and helps parents choose the best possibilities for their children to spend the summer holiday (www.minitipp.hu). We operate a public internet access point (PIAP), in our institiution.
Professional workshops and publications
Our institution has organized a monthly conference series addressing the current issues of community culture, and we also provide ample opportunity for professional workshops to experiment and function. We consider it essential to assemble methodological publications to document, inform and analyze the tendencies and processes of community culture in Hungary as well as on an international scale.
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Adult Education Pallo project Pallo network project
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Budapest Cultural Centre
Adult Education
The BCC is an accredited adult education institution. To date, our institution offers up to 50 types of courses for adults. We cooperate with numerous adult education institutions, universities, colleges and NGOs by developing and launching various training programmes together.
Pallo project
In the last few years BCC has gradually become integrated into programmes that target the enhancement of certain social groups with respect to integration and improved chances in the labour market. One of these programmes is an online database (www.felnottkepzesinfo.hu), of which goal is to familiarize the public with the concept of lifelong learning and to present easier access to such learning opportunities. Beside the online database we provide a helpdesk service both over the phone and in the form of personal assistance. We have also introduced a professional course in adult education consultancy via e-learning which prepares cultural managers for the adult education consultant work.
Pallo Network Project
In 2009 we have started building a network of adult education information offices. The Pallo Network project is financed by the European Union (European Social Fund). We design a comprehensive programme package which can be available and adapted by other organisations. Within the framework of the project we train professionals who can support adults with giving appropriate information on training possibilities. We s e t u p f o u r n e w a d u l t e d u c a t i o n information offices countrywide and we give help desk support for colleagues working in similar offices. Together with the new offices we operate a national adult education information system under www.felnottkepzesinfo.hu Budapest Cultural Centre
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Youth projects Youth Academy
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Budapest Cultural Centre
Youth projects
We have participated in several international projects so that we could provide community cultural organizations with up-to-date information with regard to youth work. We have organized a conference to facilitate cooperation between different organizations that focus on young people as their target group, and we have studied the socalled outdoor method which may contribute to community development.
Youth Academy - Not just live, understand the world!
The project is aimed to support young people to make a good start in life. Through the programmes of the Academy young people will have the chance to get to know and understand themselves and their environment better. We offer various programmes for free of charge until the summer of 2011. The main themes are: self-management (rights and obligations), environment protection, communication, educational guidance and personal counselling, talent management. The first year is dedicated to democracy, learning and communication. Among others we improve the participating children’s language competence and their knowledge on democracy as well as we introduce voluntary work to them emphasising the importance of active citizenship. In the second year we focus on talent management. We offer different creative courses to support their self-expression. We set up a homepage on which we collect children’s life related programmes and information (www.teertedakademia.hu). This project has been funded with support from the EU, coofunded by the European Social Fund.
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International Contacts Grundtvig projects for active ageing
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Budapest Cultural Centre
International contacts 1999 marks the beginning of international partnerships for BCC, and since 2001 the institution has joined several EU projects. Upon the success projects and good experiences of the last years we are open for further international cooperations in the future.
Grundtvig projects for active ageing The issue of senior citizens has always been an important concern of the BCC since its establishment. Our aim is to support their engagement to learning and voluntary work, improve the quality of their lives and contribute to ensuring cultural and information equality. We have been carrying out a systematic development since 2001; a new system of programmes and activities was designed which includes the traditional programmes as well. The key elements are the following: – developing courses based on the needs of the age group – participating in international projects – networking – group of professionals, venues and teachers – supporting self organised communities – issuing publications – facilitating voluntary work and leisure time activities. We participated in several international projects in the last few years which significantly contributed to achieve our aims in this field. The project named Removing Barriers to learning for older people (2002-2004) was devised in cooperation with our English, Irish and Austrian colleagues. In the framework of the programme, the international team defined the barriers that constrained older people in learning, collected the best practices and accumulated a vast amount of experience which led to the publication of a manual for the teachers / trainers of senior courses. On the basis of the team’s newly developed training programme, we organized a course in Hungary which was attended by adult educators from 8 countries.
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Grundtvig projects for active ageing
www.slic-project.eu
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Budapest Cultural Centre
Click on, Granny!
In the last few years, the Budapest Cultural Centre has introduced a successful Internet course for senior citizens (over 55 years) called “Click on, Granny!”. Upon international invitation, we joined the project www-GoldenAge in 2005, whose aim is to develop innovative methods in the information technological training of older people. The project called Silver Net focused on transferring our “Click on, Granny!” IT course for older people. We delivered several courses in Slovakia and Romania. Our project partners adapted the international curricula and set up new courses in their countries. The “Click on, Granny!” project became the official programme of the EU “e-Inclusion Be part of it!” campaign in 2008.
SLIC (Sustainable learning in the community) project
SLIC was a European project carried out from December 2007 to January 2010 and was funded within the European Commission’s GRUNDTVIG-programme. The project addressed the issue of increasingly ageing societies and the promotion of active ageing. The aim was to develop new practical ways to help older adults review their past experience and personal skills, and explore new and potential opportunities for learning and community engagement. This was done through the development of an innovative workshop model that is set out in a handbook. SLIC was coordinated by the Austrian Red Cross. Nine organisations from six European countries – Austria, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and the United Kingdom – participated in the SLIC-project.
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Grundtvig projects for active ageing
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Budapest Cultural Centre
U.N.I.C project
The two year U.N.I.C project (2009 – 2011) focuses on having a better understanding and gaining more information on daily life learning needs, expectations and interests of older people. The project aims to involve inactive seniors in all dimensions of learning and to engage them in learning. http://unic.learning-partnership.eu
Senior Volunteers as Cultural Ambassadors (2009 – 2011)
Senior volunteers from Hungary and the UK are part of an exchange during which they educate mainly senior volunteers in the host country about the social and cultural history of the sending country.
Hungary – Slovakia Cross border Co-operation Programme 2007 - 2013
During the cross-border action we organise exchanges and workshops for seniors and children. In the two countries at four venues seniors learn the use of new ICT while children are taught about safe internet use. We develop the method of recording and publishing online maps introducing cultural values which can support the virtual travel organisation, too. http://husk-cbc.bmknet.hu
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Quality management in international dimension International assistance 18
Budapest Cultural Centre
Quality management in international dimension
BCC has devised a community culture-specific quality assurance system in order to improve the quality of the services offered in this sector and to encourage a more partner-centred approach. For this reason our institution participated in a Grundtvig project which aimed at comparing adult education institutions on an international level.
International assistance – Information services and publications
The Budapest Cultural Centre supports the international activities of several community cultural institutions and organizations in the capital by involving them in international projects. We have initiated international cooperations between different community cultural institutions in order to enhance their understanding of EU projects and the issue of project management. As a result of international cooperations, the BCC has contributed to the following publications in English: – The learning age – Removing barriers to learning for older people. – Breaking down barriers to learning for older people (A training manual). – Handbook of EU – Projects in Culture and Adult Education. – HANDBOOK – Sustainable Learning in the Community, Raising awareness of older adults’ skills and experience and identifying new opportunities for learning and engagement.
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Budapest Cultural Centre (BCC) 55 Etele út, Budapest H–1119 Tel: +36 1 371 2760 Fax: +36 1 371 2761 E-mail: bmk@bmknet.hu Web: www.bmknet.hu
„This publication has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.” Picture credits the www.sxc.hu and the BCC archive.
Published by: BUDAPEST CULTURAL CENTRE Executive publisher: Katalin MARGITTAI, director