Hungary celebrates first Opportunity Day

A new tradition was born on Friday in Hungary where from now on, May 21st shall be known as Opportunity Day. The first official celebration of the day took place on Friday in a Budapest park, where you could enjoy performances by a variety of minority groups, but where the audience also had the opportunity to find out more about equal opportunities in today's Hungary.

Petra Hajdu of Radio Budapest talked to the main patron of the festival, Minister of Equal Opportunities, Katalin Lévai:

"We want to focus attention on this very important issue and that's why we decided to make May 21 an equal opportunity day in Hungary. We would like to create traditions with that and we hope that every year on this day there will be a celebration and there will be programmes to attract attention on equal opportunity issues."

Who is the festival for, who should know most about Equal Opportunity Day in Hungary?

"Practically everyone. We invite families with children and there will be lots of musical events and dancing. It's for everyone who would like to have a good time during a nice weekend. The target audience is the whole population of Budapest and those who happen to be in the capital on that day."

When you want to promote something like equal opportunities, you surely have someone in mind. Is there any kind of group that you want to focus on, a layer of society or a minority that needs to get some attention?

"Yes, of course. If you have a look at the programme, you see that Roma dance and music groups will perform and even some groups who represent people with disabilities. This means that we want to address children, the Roma living with disabilities, and women as well. So, they are all the groups that may have disadvantages or may be discriminated in Hungary."

Budapest

When I hear the word equality, I always think of the book Animal Farm where some animals were equal and some were even more equal. In Hungary, who would you call equal and who are less equal these days?

"Those who are less equal are the people who have less opportunities to get to good schools, those who were born in the countryside in the underdeveloped region, the women, for example, who are in their forties and may have many obstacles if they want to get into the labour market or want to go up the hierarchy in the labour market. Even less equal may be those Roma groups, who have to face discrimination and prejudices every day and those who are uneducated. So, I have a long list of the social groups that are less equal than the others and our aim is to fight against discrimination and segregation and to achieve a much more just situation."

Now that Hungary just joined the European Union, do you think that the situation is about to improve in any way, any time soon?

"I hope so because on the agenda of the European Union, these are priorities - to fight against discrimination and against poverty. These are the main issues when we speak about social policy even if there is not a common social policy in the European Union, the priorities in the 'social Europe' suggest that these issues cannot be forgotten and that equality is a value that is highly appreciated by all the countries."