Helping Self-Help
Interview with András Bíró, Winner of the 1995 Alternative Nobel Prize
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When a certain social group loses hope, there are no rules of the game any more; anything goes, anything can be done. We know how great the bitterness is. It is not true that they don't want to work, that's not what we have observed. What is true, however, is that they are jobless and drifting. In a situation like that, extreme things are bound to happen.
The approach must be from several angles. The very first--and that is why we are especially active here--is simply to provide them with food, to, allow majority to lead a normal life biologically. I don't know how well it is known that the life expectancy of Gypsies in Hungary is ten years less than the average. That fact speaks for itself. Living conditions are obviously closely linked with whether these people are able to earn money at all. We must help them to make some money.
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The second issue, which is enormously important, is the problem of education, of schooling. It is awfully difficult for a Gypsy child, who has much greater freedom at home than the children of the majority have, to sit down on a school bench and stay quiet there for fifty minutes at a stretch. The simplest thing for the teacher is to declare that the child is subnormal. Then the kid is put into a special class, and the whole process starts afresh. We have to give training to teachers whose job is to deal with these children on a special basis, and even give some financial support to them, if necessary.
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Five Years in Action
THE HUNGARIAN FOUNDATION FOR SELF-RELIANCE
(Autonómia alapítvány)
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Our philosophy is to provide what we call the fuse money needed for something to start. By not handing over the whole amount as a grant, we want the Gypsy communities to learn to plan. One of the main problems of people living on the fringes of society is that they subsist from day to day. God will take care of tomorrow. That's obviously no way to cope with problems. Every year we invite a few project leaders--ten to fifteen--to sit down and talk things over for a day or two, to see what they have achieved and where they failed a to see what they have achieved and where they failed and why. We analyse things.
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We have no fixed formula applications should meet, but if we recognise that a local community has the strength to take the initiative, we go down there and start a dialogue. Is this the right thing to do? Is there a market for watermelons? This year, for example, watermelon situation was catastrophic. They couldn't sell them.
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Even if there were to be a hundred times as much money, you can't solve everything just through money. The kind of relationship that exists between donor and recipient is extremely important. All through history, the Gypsies were either given or took things, but they very rarely gave; so why should they not give something this time which we would receive from them? All I can do is to represent a way of thinking on how to use funds in ways appropriate to the objectives and through the right methods. If this foundation operates in such a spirit, and not as a government bureaucracy, then it can really achieve a breakthrough. Solution? There is no solution.
You are fairly aggressive and straightforward in going after what you want. Has your style ever come into conflict with that of other Hungarian organizations with similar objectives?
It may be somewhat unusual. I am ready to admit that. But transparency, clear expression, openly declared objectives and methods are of outstanding importance here. In a society where every major decision was made in secret for forty years, people are unaccustomed to this openness.
And how do Gypsies feel about this?
I talk to them in the same way as I am talking to you. I make no distinction between ragged-trousered Gypsies and yourself. In fact, my business isn't with them, it's with a case, and in that there are two parties. And they sense that.
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Gábor Kereszty and György Simó
