Supporting disadvantaged children and young people is at the core of Motivation Collective’s educational work. To this end, we run two after-school programs—community-based learning spaces that provide comprehensive support for children and young people growing up in poverty.
We opened our first program in Szeged in 2013, building on and rethinking the Student Mentoring Program that had been running for the previous five years. We welcome participants from across the city and provide a safe, supportive environment for learning and community life.
Our second program was launched in Balástya in 2017. Many of the children who attend live in outlying areas of the village. Across the two locations, we work with nearly seventy-five disadvantaged children and young people on weekday afternoons, and we also organize regular weekend activities—often involving their families.
We work with the children in small groups, each supported by a dedicated mentor-teacher and a team of volunteers. Our sessions focus on developing students’ personal and social skills, supporting their academic progress, and helping them recognize and develop their strengths.
Our programs are grounded in research and built on methods we have developed and refined through our professional work. We apply innovative, evidence-informed pedagogical approaches that respond to the challenges facing education today and that can be adapted by other schools and organizations. Our methodological work emphasizes critical thinking, collaboration, and creative problem-solving, while also placing strong emphasis on reading comprehension and mathematical skills.
We integrate our own reading comprehension and mathematics development programs into our sessions, and we regularly use board game–based learning and structured debate as part of our methodology.
We place particular emphasis on climate-conscious education and environmental sustainability, which are integral to our pedagogical work. We have developed the Motivation Climate Curriculum, which allows us to address the impacts of climate change and prepare young people to respond to them in a structured way. In our Balástya program, children are also involved in maintaining a permaculture garden .
We aim to support children in becoming active, responsible members of society who are motivated to take initiative. To this end, both programs operate student councils based on a representative model. Through these, we have implemented several projects based on participatory budgeting. These structures allow children not only to take part in community life, but to actively shape it—contributing to decisions and initiating projects that support the development of their community.
An important part of our work is also the professional support of teachers, pre-service teachers, and other helping professionals. Our goal is to provide them with the tools and knowledge needed to support disadvantaged learners and to promote inclusive education. We organize training programs and contribute to the development of university courses.
Each semester, we welcome volunteers⠀who, after completing our training and with the support of our staff, take part in running our programs and gain valuable hands-on experience.
In line with our pedagogical approach, we also develop educational tools . Our learning materials—many of which can be used both as board games and as teaching resources, such as Pathways to Opportunity, Segregation Mosaic, and System Error—focus on issues of educational integration and inclusive education. We use these tools not only in our training programs, but also in awareness-raising and equity-focused initiatives.
Through our research-based publications⠀policy reports, and methodological materials, we offer solutions for reducing social inequalities and promoting equity at all levels of education.
By founding and coordinating the TanodaPlatform network, Motivation Collective plays a key role in supporting and developing the after-school program movement in Hungary.
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