Canadian-Hungarian Training Workshop
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From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 20:54:13 +0300 (EET DST)
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Subject: Canadian-Hungarian Training Workshop
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Judy Young <[email protected]>
Canadian-Hungarian Training Workshop
Judy Young (Special Advisor, Multiculturalism, Department of Canadian
Heritage) submitted to the MINELRES database an interesting report on
the training workshop for Hungarian government officials devoted to
the problems of ethnic minorities and held in Budapest in October
1997.
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Report on the Canadian-Hungarian Training Workshop Part I.
A workshop for Hungarian government officials organized by the Office
for National and Ethnic Minorities, Budapest, October 1997.
Note: the following report should be read in combination with the
summary of both parts of the workshop prepared by Judith Solymosi and
Anna Polg�r.
I. The workshop program.
1. For the opening of the workshop about 30 people gathered from four
ministries (Culture and Education, Labour, Welfare and Interior),
including a couple of ministerial advisors from the Interior Ministry
and the Prime Minister's Office. List of participants will be prepared
and circulated.
Dr Ors�s explained the purpose of the workshop, and welcomed everyone.
She also introduced the members of "Story Exchange", who had
performed at the recent CIVICUS conference in Budapest, and who had
been invited to start the workshop. The group gave a dramatized
presentation of stories from gypsy (Roma) life in Hungary. This was an
excellent way to get into the atmosphere of the questions to be
discussed, and the information to be imparted. The vignettes and
stories from real life experiences helped to bring to he attention of
the workshop members the situation of gypsies, including the economic
difficulties they face, the prejudice, and the general everyday
situations in school, village, local bureaucracies. They also went
back in history a bit and reminded of the war and the Holocaust.
2. After the introduction of all participants, Albert-Jan Galpin,
First Secretary of the Canadian Embassy brought greetings on behalf
of the Canadian government, spoke about previous cooperation between
Canada and Hungary in relation to looking at issues of pluralism and
citizenship and gave an overview of Canadian Human Rights legislation
noting its broad range of applicability in dealing with citizens'
rights.
Judy Young followed by giving an overview of the diversity of Canadian
society and the variety of issues this raises, the role of the state
in dealing with this diversity, and specific examples of projects that
can be undertaken to facilitate inclusion of citizens in society, to
help avoid conflict, to promote tolerance through public education,
and to encourage institutional responses to difference, etc.
3. During the next two and a half days, there were sessions devoted
to discussion of existing policies and programs in the different
ministries, both centrally and locally. Although there are some
programs (and certainly there is legislation), it seems that not all
needs have yet been recognized and that existing programs have not yet
been able to respond to all identified needs. Comments that were
repeatedly made include the following: There is not enough information
and data available to assist the development of appropriate
initiatives and programs. This is particularly true for the situation
of the Roma which is quite desperate in some areas and for whom
lasting employment opportunities are not yet available. Though it
became clear that even in the case of other minorities there are needs
that most people are not aware of (ethnic seniors not speaking
Hungarian, not having appropriate attention and services regarding
dietary or religious customs, etc), and therefore they are not
responded to. It was said that what is sorely lacking is professional
development and training opportunities and programs that take into
consideration the ethnic factor. For instance, it was stated quite
clearly that there are very few training programs for health care and
social service professionals which include cultural sensitivity
training or require knowledge of minority ways of life, or the
sociology of inter-ethnic relations.
......................................
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The entire text of the report (27 Kb in plain text) can be obtained
from the MINELRES moderator by request.
Boris
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