Minister of Human Resources Zoltán Balog, State Secretary for Sports Affairs and Deputy State Secretary for Sports Affairs Pál Szekeres handed over awards to Olympians and Paralympians winning 4th, 5th and 6th place and officials helping their success at this year’s Games. The ceremony honouring members of the Hungarian team was held at the Museum of Fine Arts on 17 September.
On Friday, 14 September the United Nations' Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) will host high-profile events to honour Hungarian neuroscientist János Szentágothai and Hungarian-born British conductor Sir Georg Solti in Paris.
On Tuesday, 11 September the Bank Austria Kunstforum opened the exhibition “The Eight. Hungary’s Highway to Modernism” about the group of eight painters - Károly Kernstok, Béla Czóbel, Róbert Berény, Ödön Márffy, Lajos Tihanyi, Dezsö Orbán, Bertalan Pór, Dezsö Czigány.
The Ministry of Human Resources is targeting the Roma with its recently published tender, which provides support for the realization of Roma cultural events and the production of other cultural content and products. The domestically funded project helps to set up cultural forums aiming at the preservation of Roma culture, traditions and language.
The Sixth World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples concluded with a declaration marking the success of a 20-year cooperation between Finno-Ugric nations, institutions and civil society organisations. In the closing plenary session of the congress, Minister of State for Culture László L. Simon delivered a speech and, together with his Estonian counterpart, signed a four-year cultural work plan.
Following the success story of the Hungarian team at the summer Olympic Games, the Hungarian Paralympic Team’s performance is hot in their footsteps: our athletes have won two gold, four silver and four bronze medals so far.
The Ministry of Human Resources designated 150 million forints to the Hungarian Office of the Finno-Ugric World Congress to organise the three-day event, and appointed Deputy State Secretary for Cultural Affairs Judit Hammerstein as the main coordinator of the preparations.
Parliamentary Speaker Laszlo Kover, Human Resources Minister Zoltan Balog and Education State Secretary Rozsa Hoffmann addressed school-year opening events in Hungary on Sunday.
The ‘Employment of Roma people in the public sector and jurisdiction’ program aims to boost the integration process by enabling more Roma people to be involved in the control of public affairs and in generally the public sector than nowadays. The project addresses the employment of Roma people with higher education degree, having taken the examination as civil servants and judicial staff by paying full wage cost for 12 months including contributions prescribed by law.
Hungary will host the 6th World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples in Siófok between 5 and 7 September. The event aims to strengthen cultural, economic and political ties between Finno-Ugric countries and communities. For the first time this year, the Congress will also host an economic forum.
Minister Balog, who is also responsible for the country’s sports affairs, will travel to London on 3 September for two days. During his stay, he will attend among others the table tennis and swimming contests.
About 500 seniors from 23 local and regional clubs in Hungary held on August 9th their annual open-air meeting in the village of Tiszabercel.
Human Resources Minister Zoltán Balog celebrated Saint Stephen's Day, Hungary's national holiday, with ethnic Hungarians in the Slovenian city of Lendava (Lendva) on Sunday.
In September 2012 Hungary will host the 6th World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples, in Siófok on Lake Balaton. The event – which was established in 1992 with the support of then President of Hungary Árpád Göncz – aims to strengthen cultural, economic and political ties between Finno-Ugric countries and communities. In May 2012 Zoltán Balog Minister of Human Resources charged Judit Hammerstein with the responsibility of organising the Congress.
The week-long 29th International Summer Camp for Disabled Youth opened in Balatonföldvár on Sunday. Its aim is to help dismantle invisible walls between those living with disability and the rest of society.
On the occasion of Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day, a commemorative event takes place in Budapest today organized by the Holocaust Memorial Centre and the Tom Lantos Institute. During the event among others speeches are delivered by State Secretary György Hölvényi of the Human Resources Ministry, Rita Izsák, the Director of the Budapest based Tom Lantos Institute, as well as by representatives of the Hungarian Socialist Party and the Politics Can Be Different party.
In the framework of the New Széchenyi Plan, 7.5 billion forints have been earmarked for the financial support of public training school programmes aiming at promoting equal opportunities as well as for the further development of programmes such as ‘Schoolnet’, ‘Tanoda’ and ‘Second Chance’.
The 100% state-owned SZEFO Ltd., over 60% of whose employees are disabled, has concluded strategic agreements with the Italian DAMA S.p.A. and the French Legrand Ltd. This will create 200 new jobs and guarantee the long-term preservation of the existing 825 jobs.
Minister of Human Resources Zoltán Balog inaugurated the TKKI Csillagpont Service House in Ózd on 30 July. The inauguration marks the conclusion of a successful project to facilitate the social inclusion of families living in extreme poverty within the framework of a comprehensive programme.
The State Secretariat responsible for Religious, Ethnic and Civil Society Relations of the Ministry of Human Resources considers it outrageous and scandalous that anonymous persons vandalised 57 tombs in the Jewish cemetery of Kaposvár on Saturday night.
Minister of Human Resources Zoltán Balog is attending the Informal meeting of Ministers for Employment, Social Affairs, Health and Consumer Affairs (EPSCO) on 12-13 July, organized by the Cyprus presidency of the EU Council of Ministers.
The International Bartók Seminar and Festival opens on 13 July in Szombathely. The programme of the opening concert, as the festival itself, begins with The Miraculous Mandarin suite, followed by La Giro, a composition by Louis Andriessen, featuring Monica Germino violin solo artist. The opening concert will also include a premiere. "I Got Riff", a work by Balázs Horváth will be performed for the first time. This piece was exclusively commissioned by the Philharmonia for the 28th Bartók Festival.
The Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society adopted in Faro, Portugal in 2005 declares the individual and collective right to cultural heritage as part of universal human rights. The framework convention has been ratified by the Hungarian National Assembly by overwhelming majority.
An Equal Opportunities Programme will be one of the entry conditions for any settlement taking part in competitive domestic- and EU-financed tender schemes. For the preparation of such programmes local governments—in response to requests from them—were granted an extension to the deadline, now 1 July 2013, due to the newly accepted amendment to the Act regulating this issue. Compared to the previous formula, a new element has been installed into the system: professional help will be granted, free of charge, in the preparation of appropriate Equal Opportunities Programmes through an equal opportunities mentoring network established by the Türr István Training and Research Institute (TTRI) [Hungarian: Türr István Képző és Kutató Intézet, TKKI], which is the background institute of the State Secretariat for Social Inclusion, Ministry of Human Resources.
The Parliament has adopted a bill with 330 votes, without abstention and counter-votes guaranteeing special protection for the cultural property borrowed from abroad for exhibitions in Hungary. The law provides a kind of „diplomatic immunity” for the duration of the show, so that these objects cannot be seized during the temporary exhibition.