Prezi in a Roma Ghetto
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 2:46PM Every January for the last three years, Prezi’s worldwide employees have convened in Budapest for a yearly strategic planning session we call "Power Week." After three days of intense brainstorming, we switched gears from innovation to renovation.
This year’s renovation project was in a Roma ghetto located in Monor, Hungary where about fifty families live in ramshackle houses that often have no running water or electricity. It is a community who, like most of Hungary's Roma population, have little opportunity. Few of their children finish high school and almost none attend university.
Daniel Kalman's short video
In two days, fifty-three Prezi employees painted and floored a school, remodeled a community bathroom facility, leveled a small soccer field, replaced windows in thirty-two of the ghetto’s houses.
Prezi employees were not the only ones hard at work. Many of the Roma children helped in leveling the soccer field and even challenged us to a match. Fortunately, it started to snow.
Each of our annual renovation projects have been within the Roma community. Why? Because we realize the opportunity that we have been given and want to share our success with this widely disparaged community and show them that it is possible to build something from nothing.
Hungarian readers can learn more about this project in this interview with Peter Arvai, CEO of Prezi.
Finally, we want to thank the staff of Hungarian Maltese Charity
Service who helped us organize this year’s project and who have been working onsite with the Monor roma community for more than eight years. Keep up the good work.
