THE ASCEND PROJECT: THE HUNGARIAN RESARCH REPORT OF AN INTERNATIONAL EXAMINATION

Our experience was that the social participation and active citizenship of young people with disabilities were low in Hungary. It was difficult to involve young people with disabilities in advocacy work at the national or EU level, because they did not recognize discrimination. The other problem was that they were not aware enough of the anti-discrimination systems that protect them. In many cases, they were skeptical about the effectiveness of anti-discrimination systems. We wished to explore and expand their knowledge of the democratic and anti-discrimination systems operating in their country (Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, and Slovakia) Central and Eastern Europe. We also wanted to increase their trust in these systems. This was one of the main pillars of the one-year Ascend program locally lead by The National Federation of Organisations of People with a Physical Disability (in short: MEOSZ) In Hungary, the main goal of the study was to examine the phenomenon of discrimination and anti-discrimination in education. In the Hungarian part of the research, we used qualitative methods (focus group interviews, mind maps) for examination.