The Government has launched a new website called Külhoni Magyarok (Hungarians Abroad), aimed at presenting the life of Hungarian communities living outside Hungary’s borders and the work that their mother country does for them in an innovative manner.
At a press conference to launch the new website in Budapest on Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister for National Policy, Church Affairs and Nationalities Zsolt Semjén said: “The goal was for there to be a new kind of user interface where everything is accessible in one place while also being personal”.
The http://www.kulhonimagyarok.hu/ website can be divided into three parts: as a news portal it’s mission is to provide information. The various national policy programmes and tenders are also accessible, including the Carpathian Basin Nursery School Development Programme, the Kőrösi Csoma Sándor Programme, and the Petőfi Sándor, Mikes Kelemen and Julianus programmes. The new and continuously refreshed website of the Határtalanul! (“Without Borders!”) Programme can also be accessed from the website with a single click.
Mr. Semjén spoke about the fact that since 2010, 300 thousand Hungarian schoolchildren have travelled to cross-border Hungarian territories within the framework of the Without Borders! Programme, including almost 100 thousand in this academic year alone.
The Deputy Prime Minister also reported on the national knowledge secondary school competition, which is expected to be launched in the autumn.
Mr. Semjén highlighted the Hungarian schools operating within the diaspora, which can be viewed on the website’s interactive map.
In reply to a question from Hungarian news agency MTI, the Deputy Prime Minister said future plans include the presentation of all of the plans of the various ministry’s that involve cross-border Hungarians in a single place.
Another part of the user interface is made up of a kind of knowledge bank, where the related regulations, strategies and publications are available.
These include the twin town programme, the expansion of which can also be tracked on an interactive map.
The third and most important part of the website is the presentation of personal stories; visitors can become acquainted with cross-border Hungarian young people, families and enterprises via short videos and interviews in the Faces of the Carpathian Basin and Hungarians in the Diaspora sections. We have begun by uploading fifty such stories, but their number will be continuously increasing in future, Mr. Semjén indicated.
The Deputy Prime Minister said one goal was to create a link between cross-border Hungarians to fill the legal frameworks that the Government has established with life, and cover the Carpathian basin and the whole world with a “network of capillaries” to an even greater extent.
State Secretary for National Policy Árpád Potápi highlighted the fact that the new website will be launched on Tuesday, with an English version also to be published very soon.
“On the new website, we are calling on cross-border Hungarian university and college students to share their personal stories relating to Hungarians living abroad. The best entrants will be invited to attend the State Secretariat’s professional weekend in Eger in late November”, he added. Entries may be submitted until 30 October, and may be sent in by anybody, nut just students, to the nemzetpolitika@me.gov.hu e-mail address.