“The Government and the Hungarian Conference of Catholic Bishops (MKPK) will be providing 120 million and 85 million forints in funding, respectively, towards the education of children living as refugees in the Middle East”, Minister of Human Capacities Zoltán Balog and MPKP Chairman, Bishop András Veres announced.
The Government will be providing the funding to Christian and other persecuted religious minorities living in Jordan, Northern Iraq and Lebanon via the MKPK, Mr. Balog told the press, adding the annual cost of educating one child is some three hundred thousand forints.
The Government is helping in cooperation with the Catholic Church because the latter had an international support network through which assistance can be sent effectively, in addition to which humanitarian aid – mercy – has a thousands of years old tradition in the Church, which assures that they don’t just provide assistance where it is needed, but “provides assistance in the way it is needed”, the Minister said.
The third criteria is reliability, the fact that if aid is provided via the Church then we can be absolutely sure that it will indeed reach those in need, he added.
If we help there, then people will be able to remain there, but if they “hope to receive some kind of imagined assistance” here in Europe then they will set out and come here, Mr. Balog pointed out.
The Minister also told reporters that the Government had decided to provide a total of 250 million forints (EUR 600,000 – 50 million forints each) to the member organisations of the Charity Council, primarily for the handling of crisis situations along borders.
Mr. Balog also spoke about the fact that the Government is often wrongly accused of not showing enough solidarity with other countries with relation to the migrant crisis. On the contrary, Hungary is not only present in the region, but is also doing its best to show solidarity through participating in humanitarian action, he stressed, mentioning as an example that Hungary has offered to provide 5 million euros for the construction of a hospital in Syria.
András Veres stressed that at the family synod organised in 2015 bishops form Syria appealed on several occasions for people not to be drawn away from these countries but instead be provided with assistance to enable them to stay in their homelands or in the closest safe country. In reaction to this request, the MKPK organised an emergency church collection in January during which Hungarian Catholics donated 85 million forints.
The Bishop also told reporters that the joint, 205 million forint donation provided by the Hungarian Government and the MKPK would arrive in the Middle East via the Kirche in Not international aid organisation, adding that he had met with the organisation’s director responsible, who informed him of the fact that schools with sufficient members of staff have been organised to operate in the refugee camps.
(Ministry of Human Capacities)
