Cooking together in the Avas housing estate

Anna Horánszky invited the residents of Avas, Roma, and non-Roma, to join cooking. The Aspect Group trainee from Miskolc organized her monthly program at the Avas Community Café. Her aim was to bring people closer together in the housing estate and to introduce healthy dishes that participants could prepare at home simply and cost-effectively.

“I put up posters and leaflets, addressed people on the street, went to the playground in Avas and also to a baby and mum club,” said Anna, explaining how she promoted the program. “I contacted several people through recommendations, and The Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta in Miskolc helped me. This meant a lot, because those I contacted personally, by name, all attended the sessions.” 

The first session was attended by four adults, including a father, and of course, their children were also present. “I didn’t want to focus on just adults, so I also involved the little ones in the project. They volunteered with the help of my trainee colleagues, who prepared face painting and craft activities for them.” 

“The concept was to get the participants to take part in the activities. One mother was happy to coordinate the tasks, others were happy to help with the preparations.” The whole program was natural, people easily got used to each other even though they didn’t know each other before.

Anna’s intention is to continue the initiative in some form in the future. “Now that the internship program is over, the cooking together can continue. What is needed is that after a while a stable community of people develops, who organize themselves and continue with it.”

“I feel that the project has also caused several changes in me. If someone approaches me on the street, for example, if he or she wants to talk to me about an advocacy issue, I listen to him. I now know how bad it hurts someone when they pass by without saying a word,” Anna sums up her thoughts.

In the Aspect Group’s traineeship program, after theoretical training, twenty scholarship holders started to implement their own projects. We talked to them in our series.