ALLIANCE INDUSTRIAL UNION 

Organizational Vision

Erzebet Szekeres has created a nation-wide program for training, employing, and housing handicapped adults in Hungary. When she started her organization 15 years ago, grants from the government were rare, and grants from donor agencies were non-existent.

Additionally, though the disabled have begun to get some attention in the public sphere, Hungarians generally think that the disabled have no place in society. “You cannot judge them for this, as the disabled were hidden from society until 1989”, says Erzebet.

Given these factors, Erzebet could not rely on the good conscience of Hungarian citizens for generating local resources; nor could she depend on government or donor funding. Thus, Erzebet realized that to create a successful integration program for the disabled, she would have to structure her program in such a way that it would generate an income of its own.

Citizen Base Strategy

Ezrebet received initial funding for her organization from the Ministry of Family and Children, the Ministry of Welfare, and the National Association for Rehabilitation of People with Disabilities. With this funding, 13 handicapped young adults, and two parents she founded the Alliance Industrial Union. The Alliance, from the beginning,  had the twin aims of service provision and income generation.

The key component to Erzebet’s integration of the disabled within Hungarian society is a series of cooperative or ‘work’ centers which house and train the disabled to live on their own. Training consists of basic skills training, vocational training, and job placement. Once trained in a vocational skill, work center clients participate in an ‘assembly line’ mode of production. Each individual completes a task that s/he is capable of, and the item is then passed on to the next person for another operation. Work center products include agricultural production such as cotton wool and livestock, all of which are grown for internal consumption as well as for sale throughout Hungary; export items such as lamp fixtures (exported to Switzerland), sunglasses (exported to Germany), and artistic and home products such as candles, rugs and baskets.

The price of products is dictated entirely by the market. Decisions regarding which products to produce are based on market demand as well as the skills of the clients. The quality of products is also essential. Distributors and consumers purchase work center products because they are of the highest quality and the best price, not as ‘charity’.

Results

Today, the Alliance employs 570 handicapped adults in 11 cities, housing 100 of them in small houses and apartments. Income generated from the sale of work center products covers 50 percent of Alliance’s annual expenses. The work center products also help the Alliance with its goal of integrating the disabled into Hungarian society. As Erzebet says, they help ordinary citizens learn “to value the contributions of the disabled in society”.

Read a profile about Erzebet Szekeres, Ashoka Fellow.