Imagine a group of bikers with the strong will to
organise themselves as activists for the homeless of Hungary. What you get then,
is the Debrecen Bike Maffia – and maybe a power of change in a country that’s
stuck in helpless apathy towards its
future.
Despite all this apathy, every second Saturday a
vivid team of Debrecenians meets in order to prepare, cook, pack and deliver
food and other basic goods to a large number of homeless people living in or
around the city. It might sound simple, but DBM is far more than a bunch of
bikers doing voluntary work. They show the very kind of civil engagement Hungary
has lacked for the past decades.
So it all started in Budapest, on Christmas Eve 2011,
a bunch of guys had so much leftovers from the festive menu, so they decided to
give it to the ones, who had no food on the streets of Budapest. So they kept
rolling with it, through the years. Now they grow a huge movement form this
idea, with daily actions and more than 22 thousand followers on facebook, and
Hundreds of volunteers.
Hungary is a country of harsh contrasts, especially
between the urban centres and rural or urban periphery. For example, imagine a
country thats people cannot communicate with its linguistic neighbourhood
without a foreign language. Once this language was mostly Russian, due to the
country’s Soviet history. But today it’s mainly English, which lots of
Hungarians still are not able to speak
properly.
Throughout its modern history Hungary has been a hot
spot between East and West. After decades of dependence on the world powers’
global conflict, Hungarians were – and maybe aremore
than ever – finally confronted with their own identity crisis. USSR times are
long gone, but however: a still tangible relic of their totalitarian regime is
that many Hungarians fell into passivity and are not being an active agent of
change.
Nevertheless, this attitude slowly changes and
especially young people get active: “Actually, this project is an
adaptation, from Budapest, but we have some specialities in our city. So we
created some new structure and project, and we invite young people as a
volunteer to discover this social
area”– explains
Richard Damu, one of the main initiators of the group and active member of
Debrecen’s youth- and
NGO-network.
Richard’s DBM has got three main guidelines: 1)
to promote the culture of cycling 2)
to strengthen social sensitivity and solidarityand 3)
to build a community of activists. The organization’s base of work is voluntarily
organized: at first the Bike Maffia collects donations and as soon as the
volunteers organized themselves, they are get started together – thoroughly
supported by their lead
activists.
But which “specialities” has the BM in Debrecen?
First and foremost Richard is hinting on locally specific obstacles like
the Debrecen Cívis, a unique feature of the city’s
citizens’ mentality: Following a very stubborn attitude, they are hard to
convince of any change – even if it improved their own life. Debrecenians are
inclined to stick onto the old customs rather than energetically moving towards
something new. Even if they may be critical as well, their general spirit has
been for too long: We want a better life – but without putting energy into
it.
This civis mentality has led to a huge gap between
Debrecen’s different social levels and groups, which rarely cooperate on
anything in order to overcome social fragmentations. While the privileged often
don’t see their responsibility to support for example the homeless, these often
are too proud to ask for help. Szabolcs Rácz, one of the chefs and activist of
DBM emphasised that „to build a community is quite important, as it
teaches people, even adults, how to turn to each other, how to ask for help and
as they see that it’s not a picture of weakness”.
To forward this new mentality of compassion and
solidarity in Debrecen was actual heart of the Bike Maffia’s work, Szabbi
explained. To raise awareness of social problems by involving people into taking
shared action – this is DBM’s contribution to a silent revolution in Hungary.
Their revolt is a fight without weapons. As simple as effective:
by radical acts of
kindness.
source: https://youth4mediatunisia.blogspot.com/2016/05/radical-acts-of-kindness-debrecen-bike.html
Annamaria and Sabbi