Movement’s summercamp in Hungary | Our volunteers did what they could: they touched the world where it hurts’

The Hungarian Calasanz Movement Hungary (CM Hungary) offers young people a variety of community experiences not only during the school year, but also during the summer holidays, with a special emphasis this year on charitable activities and voluntariness.

The Calasanz Movement in Hungary, according to the evangelical call ‘Because you say so’, organized for the first time a volunteer camp in the piarist presence in the little town called Sátoraljaújhely. During the first week of August, students and university graduates from the Calasanz Movement helped to organise a day camp for almost 30 local children aged 7-12 who are Piarist students, and at the same time helped to renovate the gypsy’s houses in the slum.

For the children of the Piarist School in Sátoraljaújhely, Piarists organise regular camps and holiday programmes for several weeks every summer. This year, renovating and painting the rooms in the developing area of the town, cleaning up the environment and organising the children’s camp together was a major undertaking that required both financial and volunteer support. The religious educators from other communities in the Hungarian Province who are active in the Calasanz Movement and young volunteers joined this project for a few days.

The less experienced young volunteers, thanks to their Piarist upbringing or the fact that many of them come from large families, quickly found a voice and a connection with the children in their care.

The organisers had prepared a varied programme. In addition to the playful, conversational meetings, they took advantage of the natural beauty of the area to take the children on a trip to the Emerald Valley of the local mountains. The camp’s community became more cohesive every day, and the opportunity and need for board games, creative and craft activities was born.

The children learned concentration, discipline and how to listen to each other while making the famous Hungaricum cake, the kürtőskalács (chimney cake). The most daring experience was the unforgettable two-loop slide on the bobsleigh track of the Zemplén Adventure Park.

The teachers also initiated a meeting for the children’s parents, where they discussed the children’s possibilities and visions for the future in a creative decorating workshop. It’s good to know that the majority of these children’s families are living in the gipsy’s almost ruined houses in the slum.

In addition to the daycare, the young volunteers, mainly boys, also volunteered to help renovate houses in the slums. Over the four days, a lot of work was done in the homes of the children who were staying at the camp. Five of the living rooms were renovated: the boys polished, sanded and painted. They cleaned and tidied up the common room of the Wáberer Foundation House of the social and
development centre of the Hungarian Interchurch Aid. They removed about eight containers of rubbish from the landfill.

In the words of Ft. László Szabó, ‘our volunteers did what they could: they touched the world where it hurts’.