The third season of the Mentor Programme in Transylvania sends the message that the Hungarian government relies on every member of the nation, and every member of the nation can rely on the Hungarian government, Deputy State Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office Péter Szilágyi said on Thursday, 18 May at the Teleki Castle in Gernyeszeg (Gornești), Transylvania.
The Deputy State Secretary responsible for national policy emphasised during the opening of the event series aimed at the professional training and organisation of Hungarian entrepreneurs that ever since 2010, Hungarian national policy has encompassed the cross-border Hungarian communities as well, and and its continuity and predictability remain unchanged even in difficult circumstances.
A Caring Nation
‘If we look back at the past 12 years, we can see that we have strengthened the institutional system serving national policy, that we have taken care of our communities, and have created opportunities for people to stay in their homeland. We have achieved all this together, along with the Hungarian communities abroad,’ the deputy state secretary highlighted. Péter Szilágyi recalled that the first Transylvanian Mentor Programme started in 2021 in the spirit of recovery after the prolonged pandemic situation, but in 2022, the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war brought about further serious challenges and economic burdens. This year is dedicated to the ‘Caring Nation’ theme in national policy, and the Secretariat has also changed the name of its central call for proposals to Caring Nation Programme.
Despite the difficult economic situation, the government continues to fund the participation of students in the Borderless Programme, which send secondary school groups on visits to cross-border Hungarian communities, Péter Szilágyi stressed, and noted that next week the Twinning Programme will be announced, through which Hungarian municipalities can submit applications for joint programmes with their twin towns. An newly added element to this call is the promotion of economic cooperation between settlements, the deputy state secretary said. He pointed out that one of the flagship programmes of joint action between the motherland and cross-border communities is the Mentor Programme, in which experienced entrepreneurs volunteer to ‘accelerate’ their beginner counterparts.
Transylvanian Mentor Programme Expanding
Péter Szilágyi reminded that the Mentor Programme has been implemented in the Carpathian Basin, including in Vojvodina, Upper Hungary, Transcarpathia, Prekmurje, Croatia, and Transylvania since 2019, with the additional benefit that a relationship of trust has been established between mentors and mentees everywhere. The Transylvanian Mentor Programme, realised through the professional partnership of the State Secretariat for National Policy, the Pro Economica Foundation, and Design Terminal, will receive participants from 14 Hungarian-inhabited counties this year.
Mónika Kozma, CEO of the Pro Economica Foundation in Transylvania, highlighted that Romania will have an unprecedented amount of development funding available in the next four years. That is why it is crucial for Hungarian entrepreneurs to possess the professional knowledge that enables them to access and utilise these resources.
She explained that within the Mentor Programme, year-round professional training and community-building activities are organised with the involvement of financial and legal experts, based on online and in-person meetings. For the first time this year, the Transylvanian programme includes not only the region of Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș), but also other settlements as where. The next Mentor Programme meeting will take place in Temesvár (Timișoara) in June, where the organisers would like to reach out not only to the programme’s participants but also the local Hungarian community.
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