Judit Berki

– I applied for a HomeLodging Manager post. That’s how I came to live in Kisterenye. I worked as a manager here for quite a while. And back then it was up to me to decide who I wanted to work with. It was great and I managed to set up a nice little team. And we assisted a lot of kids in flying the nest. – What exactly is HomeLodging? What’s the set up? – There were fifteen kids in this particular HomeLodging. I was the manager and I had staff working for me. It was a round the clock duty. – So these kids actually lived there, didn’t they? – Yes. Just like the kids who live in this house. This is where they go to school from, this is where meals are cooked for them, they do live here. The educational rationale was to teach them all the skills that they will need to be able to look after themselves when they move out from there. This is essential as in the large children’s home everything was provided for them. The point here was to teach them to live independently. You had to assist them with their studies, you check what they are doing and help them pick their clothes. Basically, you take care of them as a mother would. Back then we regarded it as a rather progressive thing. And that’s what it was! I remember people collecting signitures to prevent kids from state children’s homes from moving in, these children are not wanted there, they are gonna be up to all sorts of things. In actual fact, kids weren’t up to any mischief and they managed to get involved in all sorts of projects […] In the children’s home children were grouped according to age. Even if they were siblings. In homelogings brothers and sisters moved in together, which was of huge importance but emotionally straining, too. […] Then finally everyone calmed down, procedures got established and things were taking shape. Eventually, I was the manager of this house for seven years.

In 2000 there was a Roma Community Centre Grant. We applied for it. It included an opportunity for us to set up a weekend school kind of thing but only on Saturdays.We were expecting kids who, for some reason, would like to either excel in a subject or make up for the gaps in their knowledge. We were granted a moderate amount of money. We could open the school every Saturday. We rented a hall and got stuck in. It turned out that there was a huge demand for what we had on offer. Eventually, we gave lessons all over the place on Staturdays. We kept expanding. They said we won’t find any teachers who would do Saturdays. It turned out that they will come and work with the children as long as they get their wages. Moreover, they invest not only their fourty-five minutes into the effort but will go the extra mile as well. Then there was a sequence of EU grant proposals and we had won each and every of them.Then we undertook to establish a chain of open schools. That’s how Mátraverebély, a segregated township and Lucfalva, a dead end village got involved. And we also had an open school in Kisterenye, further up. So, we had four open schools. Later on, we had to close the one is Kisterenye due to lack of money. At present we operate three open schools with more than 110 people. We would have capacity for many more than that, but we cannot afford it as we are on a low budget. For the last couple of years we haven’t won any grants. We keep the schools running on private donations in additon to the four million Forints we were granted by the ministry for the three open schools.We have donors giving 2 000 Forints per year or 500 000 per year and there is an ltd supporting us with 2 million Forints per year. That’s how we manage. And with loads of voluntary work. I and Szilárd, we also work on a voluntary basis. […] If we don’t win a grant at the open school tender, we’ll have to think over how we want to proceed. Kids come at about half past one and stay till the evening.This is how it goes in each of the open schools. And you have to figure out on an ongoing basis how you go about supplying things that you need.