Capital: Budapest
Area: 93,000 km²
Population: 10.1 million (December 2000 est.)
Ethnic groups: 90% Hungarian, 5% Roma and Sinti
Official language(s): Hungarian
Religion(s): 68% Roman Catholic, 21% Reformed, 6% Evangelical
Currency: 1 forint = 100 filler
SOS Children's Villages' activities in the country
It was in 1980 that a city in Hungary first showed interest in the construction of an SOS Children's Village. However, they did not receive the necessary backing from the relevant ministry. It was only following talks with the Hungarian foreign minister, Frigyes Puja and the minister for culture, Béla Köpeczi in 1983 that the first steps could be taken and an Hungarian SOS Children's Village Association could be founded. The cornerstone for the first SOS Children's Village in Battonya, a small town on the Hungarian lowland plain, near the Rumanian border, was laid on October 30th, 1983.
The first children were able to move into their new homes in the summer of 1986. The first families were able to move into the second SOS Children's Village in Kecskemét in the summer of 1990 and a few years later the third SOS Children's Village in Köszeg went into operation. As the need for a facility for the youths was ever-increasing, the first SOS Youth Facility was opened in Szeged, a large town near the border to the former Yugoslavia, in November 1994. Two more were to follow: one in Békéscsaba, near the city of Battonya and the other in Lajosmizse, just a few kilometres away from Kecskemét. With more children getting older, another house, in the larger neighbouring town of Szombathely, was bought in the summer of 2002 to use as an SOS Youth Facility.
Sometimes it is the case that SOS youths show behavioural disorder and cannot be integrated in an SOS Youth Facility. For this reason foster parents were engaged who work intensively with these youths and prepare them to go back to the SOS Youth Facilities.
As the need for long-term family based care is very high especially in the underdeveloped region near the Romanian border, SOS Children’s Villages Hungary decided to extent the SOS Children’s Village Battonya by two family houses and a child development centre. The construction works have not finished yet.
At present there are three SOS Children's Villages, four SOS Youth Facilities, one SOS Kindergarten and one SOS Social Centre.