Debrecen4U
May 11, 2026
International Cooperation in Preparing People for Emergencies
The Rescue Team of the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid is an active participant in the internationally coordinated project entitled Savelife-guide, which has been co-financed by the European Union. The next international professional meeting of the project was hosted in Debrecen on 8–9 May 2026.
On this occasion, participants from Italy, Austria and Romania, together with Greek and Hungarian representatives attending the event, paid a visit to City Hall on 8 May 2026 under the leadership of Gábor Hegedűs, President of the Rescue Team of the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid, where they were welcomed by Deputy Mayor Diána Széles.
As Gábor Hegedűs explained, the current meeting in Debrecen is the final major milestone of the project, which began in 2023 and will conclude in August 2026. The programme’s primary objective is to create educational material for disadvantaged young people living in rural areas, focusing on life-saving skills, emergency prevention, survival techniques and civil protection knowledge related to extraordinary situations that may occur in everyday life, while also strengthening their self-confidence and sense of social responsibility. Four organisations, connected not only professionally but also through long-standing friendships, are participating in the project: the local disaster management unit of the town of Atri in central Italy – with which the Hungarian partners have cooperated for three decades – the voluntary fire brigade association of Tamsweg near Salzburg in Austria, the Harghita County Voluntary Firefighters’ Association from Székely Land in Romania, and the Rescue Team of the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid as the programme coordinator, while Greek professional advisers are also supporting the work. One of the Greek experts explained that, during the joint work, they had built close relationships with many local communities and received a great deal of positive feedback from them, which contributed to the success of the project. It was also noted that, using the educational material developed within the programme, presentations for children would be held during May in two primary schools in Debrecen as well as in disadvantaged settlements across the county.
In her welcome speech, Deputy Mayor Diána Széles highlighted that Debrecen is proud of the fact that, despite the self-centred attitude often characteristic of modern society, volunteering functions extremely well in the city, and that the local authority considers supporting voluntary activities part of its mission. The city is also proud that the Rescue Team of the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid is recognised internationally as a humanitarian organisation. She also described the organisation’s participation in the project as exemplary, noting that today’s young people must have their attention drawn to human values – including the importance of helping others and taking active responsibility for the community – and that these values must be passed on to them. She stressed that it is important not only to help young people recognise the value of offering assistance, but also to cultivate within them the intention to act selflessly, as well as the ability to make quick decisions, the courage and the stable knowledge necessary to be willing and able to help when required. According to Diána Széles, this can most effectively be achieved through personal and practical example-setting, while naturally taking into account the specific characteristics of the world in which today’s young people live. In her view, the unique international Savelife-guide project serves all of these objectives very effectively.
Following this, participants in the programme demonstrated a computer application linked to the educational material they had developed, which can be used with VR headsets. The programme is capable of modelling the user’s actual surroundings, generating virtual “fires” within that environment and allowing users to extinguish them in the virtual space using a life-sized “fire extinguisher”. This solution provides an excellent and safe way to practise the use of fire extinguishers and firefighting techniques while also adapting to the digital world familiar to young people.
Source and photo credit: debrecen.hu
