"Our mother tongue is the source of all of our values and strength," Árpád János Potápi said at the inauguration of new accommodations at the Esterházy Academy built with support from the Hungarian government.Continue reading
The Hungarian government will continue its cooperation with Hungarian organizations in western Europe in 2022, dedicated as the Year of Acting Nation, the state secretary in charge of policies for Hungarian communities abroad in the Prime Minister’s Office said in Basel on Saturday.
Árpád János Potápi told MTI by phone that he had addressed the general assembly of the Western European Association of Hungarian Country Organisations (NYEOMSZSZ), an umbrella organization with 17 members.
Potápi thanked the leaders of Hungarian organizations in the Carpathian Basin and elsewhere in the world for their active work in encouraging voters to cast their ballots in Hungary’s April 3 parliamentary election. “As a result, a record number of 318,083 Hungarians voted by mail, 50,000 more than in the previous ballot in 2018,” he said. Potápi welcomed that close to 94 percent of them supported “the continuation of the Fidesz-Christian Democrat ruling alliance’s nation-building policy”.
The state secretary noted that after the coronavirus pandemic, the government could re-launch its children and youth programs this year.
The Kőrösi Csoma Sándor program sending young Hungarians to teach diaspora communities around the world is scheduled to start on June 15, Potápi said, noting that since its launch in 2013, the scheme has involved 661 grantees teaching in 29 countries.
Potápi said the scheme of weekend Hungarian schools will also be re-launched and camps and study visits to the Carpathian Basin for young Hungarians will again be organized.
The state secretary welcomed the establishment of the Hungarian Youth Council of Europe (EMIT), an umbrella organization for young Hungarians in Europe.
Featured image: János Árpád Potápi, Minister of State for National Policy of the Prime Minister’s Office, speaks at a conference on the training of Hungarian child psychologists abroad at the Benczúr Hotel on May 18, 2022. Photo by Tibor Illyés/MTI