Short report from Hungarian study visit on Active Citizenship
October 5-9, 2009, the SUPPORT partner Hungarian Association for Environmental Education (HSEE) organized a study visit, financed through the EU CEDEFOP programme.
The target group was educational experts and the study visit was organized on the theme of "Active citizenship" and carried the strong title: "Conscious citizens - sustainable communities".
Due to some last minute cancellations, only eight participants, from Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain, Turkey and the UK, took part in the five day programme. The participants represented universities (both teacher training departments and regional/international networking institutions), school authorities and school administration plus the undersigned who represented the SUPPORT project.
The program (which can be downloaded here) started with a visit to the Hungarian Ombudsman for Future Generations' office, which opened for very interesting discussions and gave food for lots of thoughts among the participants. The week continued with visits to local organisations working with education and environment issues, and how to link these. The second day was spent in the town of Szentendre, just north of Budapest, where we visited the "Church Hill School" (Templomdom) and "Sundial house Education Centre" (Napórásház). These two institutions have an interlinked history and are a good example of truly active citizens, who have worked for over two decades to realize their ideas of a school which prepares its pupils for what we today call "lifelong learning".
On the third day, two environmental education centres were visited, in Agostyán and in Penzesgyõr, before going to Kapolcs on the fourth day. In all these visits, the hosts showed great hospitality and presented the work of their organisations with great enthusiasm.
On the last day, there was finally time for some reflection and time to "digest" all the impressions and information, which lead to very interesting discussions in the group and with the representative of the HSEE.