"One hundred thousand people involved in the public work programme will be entitled to attend school for four months in winter while receiving the public work allowance of HUF 49,000", Minister of Human Resources Zoltán Balog announced at the symposium of the Jesuit Roma Vocational College in Budapest on Friday.
In his speech about the national strategy for social inclusion, Mr. Balog highlighted: these participants of the public work programme will also be able to receive child-related tax benefits from 1 January. He emphasised that a hundred thousand people can take part, among others, in basic competence training financed by the state, in particular from EU resources. Therefore, should anyone have failed to finish their primary school studies, they will now be given the opportunity to complete them.
Zoltán Balog pointed out that inclusion is impossible without culture, and faith is an integral part of culture and vice versa. He noted that within the process of social inclusion churches are the most essential partners of the government. They are the sources of the most help and of some criticism too. Nevertheless, churches are in debt to gipsy communities, given the fact that it took some time before they recognized that the tools at their disposal should also be used to help the social inclusion of the Roma community, he added.
He also drew attention to how important it is to enable Roma people to obtain higher education diplomas, so that their own intellectual circle may continue to develop. Today, only 0.8 percent of this community has a degree. ”The path offered by Christian Roma vocational colleges is worth following”. In addition, students of vocational colleges may become a model for young Roma showing them that catching up is never impossible.
He reported that a conference will be organised next spring concerning the relevant census data gathered by the Central Statistical Office. According to Minister Balog, despite appearances, the approximation of majority and minority family models has begun, which means that the great family model so typical of extreme poverty is being pushed into the background even among the Roma. Instead of families with large numbers of children, an increase can be perceived in the number of families that have only two or three children.
He informed that the figure relating to the residential floor area available per person is 18.3 square metres among the Roma, compared to a national average of 28 sq metres. Ten years ago this figure was only 13 sq metres among the Roma minority. 67 percent of the Roma community have a flat with a toilet, while 94 percent of the total population have such commodities. 22 percent of Roma live in large families, while this figure was 29 percent in 2003 and only 5 percent of the total population choose to live in large families today. Based on the survey, 77.4 percent of the Roma smoke, but this is true for only 31 percent of the total population, and Roma life expectancy is still 8 to 10 years lower than that the national average. It is remarkable that churches play a relatively insignificant role in terms of trust for the total population, whereas they are given priority among the Roma –Zoltán Balog specified.
Among others, former Minister of National Resources Miklós Réthelyi, Bishop of Vác Miklós Beer, Greek-Catholic Diocesan Bishop of Hajdúdorog Fülöp Kocsis and Apostolic Exarch to the Apostolic Exarchate of Miskolc Atanáz Orosz also attended the event.
(Ministry of Human Resources)
