Young Roma in Hungary must find their own individual path and pursue their own careers, the Minister of Human Resources Zoltán Balog told the annual conference of Christian Roma Special Colleges on Saturday.
Mr Balog called the attention of college students to the enormous challenge they face of how they could become and remain Hungarian Christian Roma intellectuals.
Mr Balog, also a Reformed pastor, called Christianity the basis on which Hungarians and Roma people, Roma Hungarians and non-Roma Hungarians, can understand each other and find common answers.
"Common Hungarian-Roma answers can in the first place be found on a Christian basis and this is why the Christian Roma Special College Network is important," he said.
Martin Axmann, regional director of the network co-sponsor Hanns Seidel Foundation, called the college network an unparalled project and expressed hope that it would be promoted abroad.
The network includes the Jesuit College in Budapest, the Greek Catholic Student Roma College in Miskolc (N), the Roma Lutheran College in Nyiregyhaza (NE)), the Reformed Roma College in Debrecen (E) and the Roman Catholic College in Szeged (S).
Addressing the conference, Florian Farkas, head of the national Roma self-government (ORO), called the college students "to be more visible" in the countryside, be present wherever possible and be a model for Hungarian Roma community.
Zoltán Kovács, the state secretary for social inclusion, noted that similarly to previous years, over 1 billion forints (EUR 3.3m) had been earmarked to operating and developing the special college network in 2014.
(Ministry of Human Resources)
