Having served the Hungarian community in the Carpathian Basin and further afield for 30 years, the Rákóczi Association aims to use the means at its disposal to promote the cause of Hungarian culture, language and ethnic Hungarian communities. The Association’s activity is directed primarily at Hungarian youth. Our organization boasts over 28 000 members and more than 500 local branches, 300 of which are youth organizations based in high schools. The Association’s head office in Budapest operates with 19 young full-time employees and a host of dedicated volunteers.
In 2019, Rákóczi Association’s close to 80 activities involved over 100 000 participants, mostly representing the young generation. The focal point of our activity is encouraging Hungarian-language school choice among ethnic Hungarian families in neighbouring countries, due to the fact that those not enrolled by their parents to a Hungarian-language educational institution are likely lost for the Hungarian community. In order to meet this goal, our organization reaches out to families with newborns, nursery-age children and first-graders alike.
Over the past year, we expressed our best wishes to 9000 newborns by endowing families our My First Book newborn diary. During the spring, we provided children enrolled to Hungarian-language schools with a complimentary schoolbag and following the commencement of the curricular year in September, we handed out our scholarship symbolizing Hungarian unity in person to 9000 children entering school at over 400 locations. Due to their key role in school choice, we consider it important to express our appreciation to nursery and primary school teachers. Wide-ranging societal support has been established in favour of the Hungarian School Choice Programme, with half a thousand municipalities and a number of public figures contributing to the cause.In March 2019, our Association was able to purchase the Várhegy Üdülő resort in Sátoraljaújhely, northeastern Hungary, with funding from the Government of Hungary. On 4 June, the Day of National Unity, the facility was ceremoniously opened to our organization’s guests in the presence of 1000 high school students from the Carpathian Basin and beyond, as well as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
