Inter Campus Hungary: Visits to Budapest and the Roma community of Szendrolad

BUDAPEST - The second trip of the season to Hungary began in Szendrolad in the north-east, close to the border with Slovakia. This region is one of the most deprived in the country with a large Roma presence. Here in 2011, the work by Inter Campus focused on promoting integration between children from the Roma community and Hungarian children. It was made more difficult by the prejudices that are held by some in the community, with Hungarian families in some cases refusing to allow their children to play and grow up alongside Roma children but such adversity just made the work more important. 

Following time in the Hungarian hills, we moved to Budapest which is a city that cannot leave you unmoved by its beauty and sense of liveliness. There are however a large number of houses here where children are in the care of the state due to extremely tough family situations. Our work takes place at the Cepsko orphanage where there’s been a clear improvement shown by the two local coaches, both in terms of their technical and educational skills. However, the greatest satisfaction comes from seeing the laughs and smiles of the children which show how valuable it is to restore the right to play for them as they grow up.