On January 27th, 2021, Budapest Enterprise Agency organised the 5th local stakeholder meeting via Zoom. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the lessons learned from the 2nd Interregional Thematic Seminar, to check the content of foreign GPs together, to learn what kind of new micro-loans BEA is offering for crafters, to listen to the Hungarian 2nd GP’s story about how they survived COVID-19 and to share news.
János Kele – General Director of Budapest Enterprise Agency welcomed participants and presented in the meeting the new micro-loans of the agency which can be suitable for those crafters who were hit by the COVID-19 and have not enough income to survive.
Mónika Alíz Mészáros – EU project manager informed participants about the status quo of the CRAFTS CODE project and summarised the GPs of the 2nd International Thematic Seminar in order to learn different practices from various countries. She highlighted the further opportunities of the CRAFTS CODE project such as the planned activities for 2021 (events in Kilkenny – online – and Antwerp) and 2022 (event in Budapest) from which at least the two last one will hopefully be an offline opportunity.
Participants also learned a Hungarian good practice from Gabriella Igyártó, managing director of the Association of Hungarian Folk Artists (AHFA) who presented the 'Festival of Folk Arts'. The festival that is organised each year to share unique folk handicraft traditions, and the knowledge is passed on to younger generations with the hope of inspiring future makers to preserve and continue these traditional skills.
Participants had an interactive discussion about the status quo of crafts industry in Hungary and agreed on strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats in order to finalise a SWOT analysis together for the HU situation. Many interesting suggestions arrived earlier by written form, as well as additional feedback from those who were unable to participate at the online meeting but wanted to support the preparation.
The participants in the virtual meeting had the opportunity to ask questions to the presenters and understand what are the success factors for creating such a good practice which is sustainable.
A new call for proposal was also announced by BEA called 'VEKOP-1.2.7.-20 Support of SMEs from Fashion and Design industry in order to adapt them to the challenges of the modern business and production' which is funded partly by the EU and the Hungarian State. Makers can apply to the call and BEA is supporting the applicant stakeholders or members of stakeholders.
At the final part a synergy was created with another project called 'Bridge to benefits' and we learned from the Budapest Chamber of Commerce and Industry Hungarian stakeholder that crafters can apply and participate in a 4-6 months long mentoring programme.
