MigHelp organizes training courses for refugees in Hungary to equip them with skills for a future in Europe. One of the courses focuses on taking care of the elderly, which had a positive effect on people's lives, helping them overcome trauma and even to make friends.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban recently said in an interview that migrants are "Muslim invaders" and stressed that the country "does not want them." But some organizations are working so that people who have been forced to flee their homes can find a place and a future in Hungary.
One such organization is the Migrants' Help Association of Hungary, also known as MigHelp, a Budapest-based NGO. Since 2009 it has been working "to empower refugees and migrants and to facilitate their integration into Hungarian and European society." Among its activities is offering refugees and migrants job opportunities to care for the elderly. This has had the positive side effect of helping refugees to leave their traumas behind, make new friends and train for socially useful employment.
Helping refugees have a future
According to the MigHelp website, the goal is to work with refugees and asylum seekers, with the "aim to help migrants to help themselves in identifying their real needs and their frustrations, and work together towards finding an attainable and sustainable solution." The NGO offers training courses "to give migrants the skills and confidence necessary for their integration and job acquisition."
The organization was co-founded by James Peter, a refugee from West Africa now based in Hungary, after a fight broke out between Christians and Muslims in the center he was staying in. "Muslims and Christians would get into fights," James told UNHCR. "I understood it was not really because of religion, but because of boredom."
James began by organizing courses to teach computer skills, and now MigHelp offers language and driving courses, as well as courses on child and elderly care, to give refugees job opportunities. Radwa Al-Nazer is a 29-year-old refugee from Syria. According to the UNHCR, she fled Damascus with her family because of the war and arrived in Hungary in 2015. Radwa is part of a group who are taking part in training courses organized by MigHelp for elderly care in the Albert Schweitzer retirement home. "I like this work,'' Radwa told the UN agency. "It requires a lot of patience and kindness, but sometimes I want to cry when I see I have made a patient happy." Radwa now works in a restaurant but would like to get a job taking care of the elderly after the course. "It's satisfying to work with people," she said. "I make the old people's breakfasts; I feed them. If they don't speak English, we use body language. When they take food from you, it means they accept you." Ilona Karpati, 93, is happy with the work by the trainees, saying, "they are very nice, lovely. They smile!"