Dandé István

The Swiss–Hungarian Civil Society and Scholarship Fund operated between 2012 and 2015, focusing specifically on strengthening the civil society sector and supporting disadvantaged students. Over the course of three years, 111 projects were implemented with funding of more than 1.3 billion forints: of the 102 civil society projects supported, 67 were in the field of social services and 35 dealt with environmental protection. Under nine scholarship programmes, 679 disadvantaged students received support.

We launched this service as a complement to our ‘EU Funds for Roma Integration’ project development programme, with the aim of facilitating the successful implementation of projects submitted through it. The service consisted of two elements: mentoring support and – where necessary – supplementary support. We made access to the service conditional on meeting a total of eight criteria.

Launched with the support of the European Commission and the Open Society Foundations, the programme sought to strengthen initiatives that utilise community resources in an inclusive manner at local level. Through a network of cooperation, the programme brought together municipalities and mayors who had established good practices in the field of Roma integration and wished to further develop their local activities.