Update from Hungary: How to Turn Youth Apathy into Action

This is the second in a series of Q&A interviews following the mentorship arranged by People Powered to assist two Hungarian civil society organizations set up and implement a participatory budgeting (PB) pilot in a high school in Debrecen, the country’s second largest city. The PB pilot is being coordinated by K-Monitor, an anti-corruption-focused NGO, and Alternatív Közösségek Egyesülete (AKE), a youth-oriented community development organization. Their mentor is Madison Rock, senior program coordinator for civic health with the Center for the Future of Arizona in the United States. We interviewed them about the preparation for the project in our first post. Here, People Powered Communications Director Pam Bailey interviews Madison and Ágnes Molnár from AKE about the launch.

When we last talked, AKE was preparing to hold meetings at the school to recruit students and teachers to assist with the PB program. How did that go?

Ágnes: The first meeting to recruit a steering committee was a student assembly. We also put up posters. The process didn’t go as well as we had initially hoped. We had six or seven people attend the first steering committee meeting, where we decided how to frame the work process. We now realize that this was a pretty good start since this is the first time PB has been tried in a school in Hungary. But still, we had hoped for more response.

We talked a lot with the school’s director (principal) about why the students were not that responsive. Part of it is that PB is a new concept to them. But he also told us that COVID had changed their attitudes a lot; they have no motivation. Before the pandemic, they were very creative, with lots of ideas about what they wanted to do in the future. But now many don't even seem to care what's happening the next day.

Students had to stay at home for many weeks because of the pandemic. They spent half of their last two high school years at home! Remember our own high school years: They were vivid and intense. Yes, now, they are back at school, but the teachers say they are still seeing the result.

Madison: That’s very similar to what we’ve seen in the United States. There are long-term impacts of being home for so long. They’re all feeling less connected, and there’s a general sense of apathy. There’s so much rebuilding and reconnecting that has to happen. But I think this situation creates even more of a reason for a process like participatory budgeting.

“PB creates an opportunity for students to break out of that sense of apathy, to develop their sense of agency instead. ”

— Madison Rock

Now they can say, “I have a voice and I can make change on my campus through this process!” PB helps rebuild trust and communication between peers, and with educators and school leadership. It’s powerful when the school administration says, “We're trusting you with these dollars; we're trusting that you're going to make a good decision. We're going to work together in a way that maybe we haven't done before, toward a common goal that's being led by all of you.” So despite the challenges, there’s now more of a reason to invest in a process like PB, because it creates a space and an opportunity for students to be able to come out of it.

As you both have told me, even without COVID, it can take awhile to build student buy-in when first introducing PB. What advice would you offer others about overcoming apathy?

Hungarian students discuss what projects they’d like to see funded.

Madison: It's about consistency, beating the drum and being the engine behind the process, in that initial year. The first year is kind of like proving to students that this is a process where you're going to be heard, that there's going to be follow through. Once students get through that first cycle and see that, “oh, the project we voted on is there, we can point to it and see it on our campus,” then trust is built and they will be more inclined to participate.

Ágnes: It didn’t work to talk to the students about building democracy. Those values are still important, but the students didn’t relate to them, they didn’t spur them to action.

One motivating message we found was to tell them that this is the first school in Hungary to try this. But honestly, what really helped is that in Hungary, there is a requirement that to graduate, high school students have to participate in community work. [This is true in some other cities, states and countries as well.] And this PB project counted toward that requirement.

But also, I’d say this: If you’re trying a project like this for the first time, it’s normal for recruitment and participation to not be so good. Just go ahead with who you have, even if it’s five people. The end result will be motivational for the later years. I’ve done community organizing before and I remember my first community meeting. Maybe four people came and I was upset! But then when you keep at it, consistently, doing the meetings, talking with everyone, people eventually come.

Ágnes: It didn’t work to talk to the students about building democracy. Those values are still important, but the students didn’t relate to them, they didn’t spur them to action.

What about the teachers? To what extent did you find they were willing to help with the process?

Ágnes: There was only one time when we were able to meet with the teachers, and we couldn’t talk to them personally, one on one. The response really varied: We could see by their eyes that some were thinking, “Oh, that's great!” And others were like, “I don't really care.” Overall, though, they were not so active. I think they are so overwhelmed with administrative stuff that the last thing they want to do is what they see as voluntary work. And then, again, there was the “COVID effect.” On January 1, vaccination became compulsory for teachers and 20 left the school because of that! It caused a big debate, a big divide, among them.

Still, there were some who were into it: We were able to involve one teacher who teaches project planning in the school and is also from a civic organization. That’s why he was really open to the whole process. I think he also wants to bring PB as a method to his organization to use. And there is also an assistant in the school who is in charge of coordinating students’ community service. She participated many times in our meetings with the steering committee. And the director, of course, really loves the project. For us, people like that are the most important.

Madison: What we see in Arizona and I’m sure elsewhere, is somewhat similar. There’s a big capacity issue with teachers out and every substitute already being tapped. So, you have teachers working through their prep hours because they are stepping in for others who are out. It’s difficult to ask them to take on extra work. So, you have to make it as easy as possible for everyone, what we call a “plug-and-play” approach: How can you give them something they can just plug in and it just goes?”

One way to get the educators on board is to develop educational components they can incorporate into their teaching. Like create a video that shows how voting takes place in Hungary, in this case, and how PB at the school mirrors that process. Or maybe create a lesson plan that teachers can use to connect what the students are doing with voting at the country level. Then PB connects to what they're already doing in the classroom.

Of course, there are always some teachers who are really excited about PB, and become what we call champions of the process. With any initiative that you do, in any community, there's going to be some people who are really excited about it. The people who tend to gravitate to the process and want to be champions are usually social studies or civics teachers, or who are involved in their community on their own and naturally see the value in this type of work. Seek them out.

What did the proposal-solicitation process look like, since to be successful, you had to engage a larger number of people?

Ágnes: We had to work around the fact that we were only allowed to talk to the students during the breaks in the school day; we weren’t permitted to go into the classes. The Steering Committee asked the students to bring their project ideas to their homeroom classes. We also sent a message through the school director to the teachers, asking them to support the steering committee – and to present the information in their homeroom classes if the students didn’t. And then we put posters all over the school and visited two times per week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, during their lunch break. For three weeks, we stopped them in the hallway, giving them a leaflet and explaining the process. And finally, we also posted on Facebook and in an online forum they use for studying.

The leaflet distributed during lunch breaks.

To actually submit their ideas, they could drop their forms into two boxes, one in each school building, or do it online. But no one submitted online. What worked the most was personal interaction – having students fill out the forms when we visited during breaks or when members of the steering committee talked with their friends.

Madison: We’ve seen that as well in Arizona. It's interesting, because you’d think that students, especially at their age and at this time, would say, “Oh, I'll just do it online.” But we see less engagement that way. I don't know if it's because everything was virtual for so long due to COVID and online was the only means of communication for so long, so now they’re tired of it. Whatever the reason, we have a better participation rate if we offer a piece of paper, and somebody on the steering committee, or an organizer, or a teacher, says, “We want your idea.” It's more personal.

Did you find that students had any difficulty conceptualizing suitable projects?

Ágnes: Madison helped us develop a leaflet that included a “frame” to help students think through project ideas: questions that were easy to answer, guiding them through the process, like, “What's your idea in five sentences?” “Why do you want to do it?” “What do you think you’d need to accomplish it?” (For example, we told them it should cost under 300,000 Hungarian forint [892 USD], be connected to the school, and so on.)

Madison: Yes, we talked a lot about what the idea-collection process should look like, including the “frame.” I shared examples of what we have done here in Arizona, to help students get past the creativity hurdle. Another example of a frame is, “What do you love about your school, and maybe want to see more of?” Because sometimes what students want is not about adding something new or changing something on campus. Maybe it's as simple as, “Oh, I really love this courtyard that has these beautiful flowers. Can we add more of that somewhere else?” We talked through some of those frames and prompts we use for students to help them get creative.

So, were you satisfied with the number of proposals you got? And what kind of projects did the students come up with?

Ágnes: Of course, we wanted hundreds of ideas! But when we first got underway and realized the initial challenges, we thought we’d maybe get 10 or so. We were happy that we got 30.

“In Hungary, doing something like this is a big step. So these were 30 amazing people! ”

— Ágnes Molnár

Seven of those proposals were essentially the same; we actually think one class thought they would have a better chance if more than one person submitted it, for example.

That brought the number down to 23. And then, some ideas were taken off the list because they were already under development. For example, one girl wanted a dance and there was already a group who was organizing it. And then a few others were taken out because when we discussed them with the director, he said they were under the purview of someone else or could be achieved simply, and right away. For example, one suggestion was for a gender-neutral bathroom. But that could be taken care of immediately, because there was already a bathroom with no sign on it that could be used for this purpose.

We ended up with a list of 10 proposals ready to go forward to a vote. Most of them are about improving infrastructure, like benches for a corridor, renovating the dance class room, a new foosball table, a box in the women’s bathroom for feminine hygiene products. Another category was events, including a championship to go with the foosball table. And then there’s a proposal to start a school yearbook. In Hungary, it's not the culture to have that. They pointed to the U.S., and said they want that too.

Did the school director say “no” to any of the proposals before they go to a vote?

Ágnes: Actually, he had a constructive answer to all of them, including how to make a proposal that wasn’t realistic into something that would work. For example, the seven proposals that were the same were about replacing the chairs in two of the classrooms. That’s 140 chairs, and we didn’t have enough money for that. Plus, the school can only buy classroom chairs from one company. We’d only be able to afford to buy 12. So he said to ask the students what's bad about the chairs, because maybe, for example, if the backs are uncomfortable, we can just buy something that will make them better.

Madison: I really like that the director in this case was all about problem solving. We have the same challenges here. Students might say, “Well, I looked online and saw on Amazon that I can buy 60 chairs for $1,000.” But they don’t realize that the school has to buy from particular vendors. The chairs have to be industrial- or commercial-grade; it can't just be something you’d buy for your household. The PB process teaches students what they have to consider when they want something to improve.

“It’s also important for school leaders to be responsive. They need to think about how they make decisions and the benefit of asking for student input. ”

— Madison Rock

They're investing significant money into things like chairs. But then students say, “Those chairs are really uncomfortable.” Well, maybe next time, before the school administration goes to buy chairs, they'll engage students in that decision process. After all, they're the ones who have to sit in them all day.

It's really cool to hear that that's starting to happen in this school.

What’s the next step, now that you’ve chosen the proposals that will go to a vote? How are you communicating this to students?

Ágnes: We just talked to Madison in our last mentoring session about how to develop posters to present both the projects for the vote and the ones that aren’t being voted on and why. She advised us on the importance of being transparent about that.

Madison: It’s an essential part of the process for school leaders to explain the response to every proposal. Students need to know their ideas didn’t just go into a black box and never come out. You need to communicate why ideas didn't move forward and the reasoning behind it. That's really what builds trust in a community.

To encourage participation, it helps to conduct the vote during the homeroom hour, when the head teacher talks about school business and you can make it “official.” It also helps to back the vote with a strong campaign that creates some excitement around it, and the students know that the vote day is coming up. We've seen really high voter turnout rates, like 90%, even during the first year of PB, when it's organized that way.

Ágnes: What will help make this exciting is that we have national elections in April. So those students who are now 18 years old can try out voting for the first time in their school, and then later to choose their country’s leaders!

Read the final interview to learn what happened with the vote and implementation.

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