Tag Archive for: charity in Budapest

Homelessness is a growing crisis in Hungary, as it is in many places around the world, particularly due to the current pandemic and the economic troubles that it causes. Here at Inter Relocation we have always tried to give a little something back to the local community and we were already aware of Utcáról Lakásba! Egyesület (ULE for short, meaning From Street to Home Association) via one of our wonderful team members, who already did everything she could to support this charity.

It’s through our colleague we came to hear about Móni earlier this year. Móni had been homeless for some time and was living in a tent. She had asked the assistance of Adj Munkát Csoport (the Provide Jobs Group) to help her find work and through ULE she came to us as our office cleaner.

Móni’s story

The team immediately took to Móni, she is full of life and clearly enjoys her work and being with us for a few hours a week. As the team grew to know her, they started to ask her, delicately, about her circumstances. She explained how she came to be homeless and what she is now doing to try to get back on her own two feet with a roof over her head. Some colleagues asked her if she needed anything and she accepted some clothes and bedding, and one of the team took it upon themselves to buy Móni lunch on the day when she cleans.

What was clear is that it is extremely hard to get sufficient work when one lives in a tent, to be able to earn enough to pay the first month’s rent and security deposit on an apartment or even a room. ULE was working as hard as possible to find Móni a place to live but with winter approaching the Inter Relocation team got together and decided that we can’t wait any longer.

A roof above her head

In one of those weird moments of serendipity, the very day we started to look for apartment options for Móni, one of our colleagues was approached by an acquaintance who had an apartment to rent. It was not in a typical expat location, but the very friendly rental fee made our colleague think that it could be right for Móni. Rapid discussions took place, the upshot of which being that Inter Relocation committed to paying the first two months’ rent. Móni actually moved into her new home around two weeks ago and we’re delighted to report that she is doing really well.

The story doesn’t end there, however.

Móni has a roof over her head but doesn’t yet earn enough to pay her rent on her own. The plan is to get her social housing by the spring but somehow we still need to cover her rent for four months.

We have never turned to our Budapest Expats community and asked for support with charitable donations but we feel this is a worthy cause that helps at least one person get back to the kind of life we are so grateful for. Maybe then we can help another person, and another.

Help Móni for her better future

So how can you help? It’s simple, either transfer funds to ULE or click on the following link and make a donation. As little as 1,000 Ft could really help a young woman to stay safe and warm this winter:

Donations via Adjukössze:

https://adjukossze.hu/kampany/utcarol-lakasba-egyesulet-1096/tamogatom

‼️ It is extremly important to write in the comment section “Albérleti támogatás” or “rental donation”. ‼️

To make a donation by bank transfer:

Account holder: Utcáról Lakásba! Egyesület

Magnet Bank, 16200151-18523939

IBAN: HU35 1620 0151 1852 3939 0000 0000

SWIFT/BIC: HBWEHUHB

On behalf of Móni we thank you for any support you can spare. We’ll of course update you on the progress we make.

The Budapest Burns Supper has been a highlight of the expat ball season for more than twenty years now. Saturday night saw another incredible effort to raise money for sick and under privileged children in Hungary.

On Saturday 25th January the Corinthia Hotel Budapest once again hosted a night of haggis, whisky, pipers, the work of Rabbie Burns and of course, a huge fund-raising effort. Over 300 guests packed into the elegant hotel ballroom, dressed in their Scottish finery.

The event loosely follows the format of a traditional Burns Supper, a tribute to the life and works of Scotland’s Bard, Robert Burns. Saturday night started out with Scottish songs, performed by the choir of the Budapest British International School, after which the pipers and drummers, specially flown in from Scotland as always, announced that dinner will shortly be served.

Charity and Culture at the 23rd Budapest Burns Supper

Highlights of the evening included a very amusing toast to the lassies and lassies’ reply, given by professional actors Shyvonne Ahmmad and Angus Taylor from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow and a rendition of Burns’ poem O Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast in Hungarian by Hungarian Scottish Society and Robert Burns International Foundation founder, Zoltán Magyar.

SME Awards

For the second year in a row, the organisers of the Burns Supper focused on the growing Small and Medium Enterprise Sponsorship scheme. Whilst smaller businesses cannot make the significant donations that multinational companies can, as a percentage of their revenue, their contributions are far larger.

The purpose of the SME sponsorship scheme is to allow smaller companies to have their own fund-raising projects, rather than their contributions going into a larger “pot”.

This time, the RBIF chose to honour two SMEs that have donated larger amounts to the foundation. Eszter Balázs, an insurance agent with Generali, donates a percentage of every sale she makes, an incredible commitment for a small business owner. Stuart McAlister represented his company, Inter Relocation, which has donated funds to help hospitals in Makó and Hódmezővásárhely buy key equipment over the last two years.

Both Eszter and Stuart were awarded with traditional Scottish Quaichs, shared sipping cups that symbolise their organisations’ spirit of giving.

An amazing result

Preliminary figures suggest that the 23rd Budapest Burns Supper raised in excess of 11 million HUF. This is another incredible result and will significantly aid the Robert Burns International Foundation in reaching its charitable goals for 2020.

Photo credits: Pelle Zoltán Photography/ Robert Burns International Foundation

145,000ft for the Children of Zsámbék!

As the many successful and not-too successful but all very happy punters disappeared into the night after another evening of drama, excitement, disappointment, wild celebration and best of all Great Fun, and the snow of winning and torn-up and discarded loosing betting slips settled, the air cleared to reveal “not too” Honest Bob the bookie with assistant and runner joyously counting the evening’s takings and donations and Sponsor monies which, yes, amount to another 145,000 forint for the Children of Zsámbék!!

Nine Races this year, shown on all the television screens and the Big Screen in the Clubhouse and on “not too” Honest Bob’s ‘betting shop’ screens giving no shelter to the faint hearted from the tension and excitement of close run races.

Fortunately Champs bar staff kept the liquid refreshment coming to help ease the blood pressure and The Club Bp’s usual charity horse race Chili con carne after the fifth race gave a chance to calm any overstressed nerves before they were stretched to breaking point yet again… but everyone survived to some extent or other!!

Many thanks for all the sponsors

So, Many Thanks to all the Members and Guests who came to support the Children of Zsámbék and bet with such glee and enthusiasm, many even donating their winnings and more at the end of the evening….and to Champs attentive staff who raced up and down the Clubhouse and Bookie’s shop all evening keeping glasses refilled.

And Special thanks to The Club’s resident Bookie “not too” Honest Bob, and staff, and hard-working Bookie’s Tout, who all managed the challenges of the electronic (??) tote board, the punters’ cheers and tears and of course the selling and taking of bets and the (reluctant?) paying out, with aplomb.

Inter Relocation Continuously Sponsors Charity Horse Race

Sponsoring seven year in a row

During the next couple of weeks we will be discussing with the Norbertine Sisters what we can most help them with – the last couple of years it has been equipment for their kitchen training workshop, but we shall see and will let you know!

And lastly, but certainly not least, many thanks to those others whom without the evening would not have been so successful – the many Race Sponsors, to friends who couldn’t be there but made donations, and of course our Main Sponsor, for the Seventh time, Inter Relocation!

Inter Relocation is proud to be the main sponsor of this charity event to support the Children of Zsámbék. More about Inter Relocations’s charity work: HERE

We always love receiving good news like this especially around Christmastime! 🙂

 

 

We’re so proud to announce that as a ‘Running Ambassador’ for Utcáról Lakásba! Egyesület (‘From Huts to Homes’ Organisation) our colleaugue, Viktória Rácz will participate in the K&H Half Marathon relay race which will take place on the 10th of June in Budapest.

Her goal is to collect 100,000 HUF for the organisation with the help of individual sponsors. The money will go to giving a homeless couple a fresh start with a roof over their heads. The organisation’s goal is to help the largest possible number of rough sleepers to move into affordable rental housing. They renovate run-down municipal apartments with the help of volunteers (Viktória is a volunteer there, too). Homeless families who will be able to move into the apartments also participate.

Click HERE for direct donation.

About the organization:

“Since beginning our work in 2012 we have been helping homeless persons move into renovated municipal flats. We renovate vacant, run-down municipal dwellings with the help of volunteers. The prospective tenants, civil society organisations, and individual and organisational donations also help. Members of the target group have no chance of ever obtaining long term, sustainable individual housing in any other way. This is because homeless persons are ineligible for municipal rental housing according to the vast majority of municipal decrees. At the same time, municipalities often have a low quality housing stock with many dilapidated, even uninhabitable flats, which they have trouble utilizing. This may also be the case for many privately owned apartments;therefore we recently began working on finding innovative ways to utilize private dwellings in affordable housing provision.

This way tenants can exit homelessness, for which they hardly have any other chance. Intensive social work, based on the Housing First approach, is a fundamental part of our work, in which stable housing is considered the first step in social reinsertion. The goal is to help clients retain their housing in the long run, for which we identify employment opportunities, and in some cases even offer jobs to our tenants. Some of our clients had no regular income whatsoever upon moving in their new housing, and today they are able to cover their bills on time.”

Source: ‘From Huts to Homes’ Organisation website

At the recent Budapest Burns Supper, Inter Relocation once again helped the Robert Burns International Foundation to raise a record sum to support sick and under privileged children.

The charity ball held by the Robert Burns International Foundation each year. Inter Relocation’s bronze sponsorship of the Burns Supper made a contribution to a record total donation, more than €26,000.

The beneficiary of the donation is the Miskolc Children Hospital, the Tűzoltó street Children Hospital, the Péterfy Sándor Hospital children’s ward and a nursery in a small and less fortunate Hungarian village, Zabar.

Inter Relocation Sponsors Burns Supper for Children’s Hospitals

Owner Stuart McAlister helped the foundation set up a new SME sponsorship program. On the initiative of Inter Relocation, the foundation supported a children’s hospital in Miskolc.

Read the interview with Stuart McAlister about the SME (small and medium enterprises) sponsorship scheme. (Released in the Robert Burns International Foundation’s publication on 21st January 2017).

The joint patrons are the British Ambassador in Hungary and the Hungarian Ambassador in London. The Deputy Head of the UK Mission has a permanent seat on the Curatorium that runs the foundation. Legendary football manager, Sir Alex Ferguson was appointed as the Honorary President.

Inter Relocation and the Budapest Robert Burns Supper

The company’s longest standing charitable effort is its ongoing sponsorship of the Budapest Robert Burns Supper and its associated charity, the Robert Burns International Foundation. Inter Relocation has sponsored the supper since 2002. Stuart McAlister was a committee member for 11 years and worked as Chairman of the event for 6 years.

The Robert Burns International Foundation and the Burns Supper are committed to raising money for sick and under privileged children in Hungary. The organisation have raised over 1 million EUR since starting their good works in 1996. When the supper first began the focus was on Budapest (specifically the 2nd department of Paediatrics at Semmelweis University Hospital). However, support has expanded to hospitals, orphanages and other children’s organisations outside the capital.

 

Interview with Inter Relocation owner Stuart McAlister about the SME (small and medium enterprises) sponsorship scheme.

The SME Sponsorship Scheme marks a new chapter in the RBIF’s fundraising efforts. It is one that opens up the potential of giving purposefully for charity to a much wider range of companies. The SME Sponsorship Scheme involves the RBIF teaming up with small and medium-sized enterprises to fund targeted smaller-scale projects. These small-scale projects make a huge impact on improving child welfare in Hungary. For the first project, the RBIF and Inter Relocation supported a children’s hospital in Miskolc specialised in hand surgery.

Below, we asked Stuart McAlister, managing director of Inter Relocation, about the scheme and his motives for helping the RBIF.

Stuart, you’re no stranger to the RBIF, but this time you’re helping in a different way, could you explain why?

I’ve been involved in the Burns Supper and latterly the RBIF since 2001. One of the aspects of fundraising that has always bothered me is that the sponsorship focus was always on the companies that could donate the most in absolute cash. Small and medium enterprises such as Inter Relocation can’t contribute the amounts that multi-national companies can. But as a percentage of their annual turnover, the amounts are far larger.
Back in the spring of 2016, I sat down with Dougie Arnott with the intention of addressing this challenge. I could see a way to highlight the contribution of smaller sponsor organisations and to make those sponsors feel they are making a real difference.

What Dougie suggested was to work with the Curatorium of the RBIF and its medical adviser to determine the best causes to raise funds for. We were searching for smaller projects that companies such as Inter Relocation could call their own. Inter Relocation is now making a major contribution to a specific project we chose for a hospital in Miskolc. It feels good to be contributing to something concrete, rather than just making a donation into a general fund.

A successful partnership is a win-win situation for both sides. What does the RBIF offer you and why do you support the foundation?

The key for me with any charitable involvement is that said charity must keep its over- heads to an absolute minimum. The RBIF does this as well or better than any charity organisation I know in Hungary. Inter Relocation is a small organisation but we have been very fortunate to have the chance to operate successfully in Hungary for the last fifteen years. Where we have the chance to give a little back, we like to do so. When we make any kind of contribution we want both to know where the money goes, and to see complete transparency in the organisation we donate to. With the RBIF, both our key criteria are met.

How does the RBIF’s activity fit in with your company’s CSR initiatives? Why would you recommend the RBIF to others considering sponsorship?

Inter Relocation’s CSR policy is very much about giving back to the community we live and operate in. The RBIF’s long-term commitment to helping sick and under privileged children in Hungary very much aligns with our desire to help wherever we can. The new addition of the facility for the RBIF to provide us with our own smaller charity project makes our contribution all the more personal and effective. I would certainly recommend having the RBIF facilitate sponsorship to any small or medium company that wishes to get its staff behind a specific project.

-Released in the Robert Burns International Foundation’s publication on 21st January 2017-

Inter Relocation helps The Club Budapest to raise a record sum to support a charity for children. The Norbertine Sisters run the organisation called Children of Zsámbék. The beneficiary of the donation is Children of Zsámbék and the Norbertine Sisters work for that organisation, free of charge.

As noted in our article of 15th November, Inter Relocation’s sponsorship of The Club Budapest’s Horse Racing Event  resulted in a record donation to the Children of Zsámbék charity.

The winnings were used to purchase much-needed kitchen equipment. On Monday (28th November), the Club and Charity members descended upon one of Budapest’s largest home equipment stores. They came away with kitchen machines, food processors, pots and pans, and many other useful items.

The donation was a joyfully received by the Norbertine Sisters’ Kitchen as an early Christmas present.

The Sisters have a challenging time keeping their work supported. Sister Katalin sent her blessings and thanks to all who supported and helped raised the money to buy the saucepans et al….

Above all, Sister Katalin was very kind and spent almost an hour of her valuable time explaining their work in the community and showing the Club members around the workshops and schools which they have built/renovated and maintain.

Inter Relocation Sponsors Horse Race, Charity Wins!

Inter Relocation is proud to be the main sponsor of this charity event to support the Children of Zsámbék. More about Inter Relocations’s charity work: HERE

We always love receiving good news like this especially around Christmastime! 🙂

Inter Relocation helps The Club Budapest to raise a record sum to support the Children of Zsámbék

We are happy to announce, that a record amount of money was raised at last Friday’s Charity Horse Racing Evening. The event was organized by The Club Budapest and we received the following report from them:

“The Club Budapest’s Fifth Annual Charity Horse Races
In aid of the Children of Zsámbék through the Norbertine Sisters’ work.
November 11, the Clubhouse, Champs, Dohány utca.
Main sponsor: Inter Relocation

127,000 Ft for the Children of  Zsámbék!!!

Yes, a Record of Note!

The Club Budapest’s Fifth Charity Horse Racing evening was an enormous success. Sweeping up the sawdust and horse droppings and discarded betting slips and counting the monies from the record attendance took even longer than last year when the previous record of amount of 100,000ft was raised!

Inter Relocation Supports New Fund-Raising RecordThe race cards and races could be seen from all over the clubhouse area – shown on all the tv screens and on the two Big Screens – with punters jumping around in joy or slumping despondently on the floor or both in turn as they watched their horse come from last to first or go from first to last in the final few strides – betting slips torn up or raced with to “not too” Honest Bob, the Club’s bookie, to collect their winnings and then, generally, straight to the Club’s Top Bookie’s Tout, who strangely placed himself strategically near “not too” Honest Bob, to purchase another betting slip… or two!

More details

The record attendance was sustained by the Chili con carne, served before the racing began, and refreshed during the racing by frequent re-filling of the glasses by Champs attentive staff – who were also able to keep up with the supply of handkerchiefs necessary to dry the tears of joy or disappointment…

So, First, Many Thanks to all who came to support the Children of Zsámbék and bet with such glee and enthusiasm, many even donating their winnings and more at the end of the evening….and Special thanks to The Club’s resident Bookie “not too” Honest Bob, and staff, and resplendent Bookie’s Tout, who all managed the challenges of the electronic (??) tote board, the punters’ cheers and tears and of course the selling and taking of bets and the (reluctant?) paying out, with aplomb…

The Club will be buying equipment for the Norbertine Sisters’ kitchen training workshop with the monies raised!

And finally, thanks to those others who without the evening would not have been so successful – the many Race Sponsors, private and corporate, to friends who couldn’t be there but made donations – and last but by no means least our Main Sponsor Inter Relocation!”

Inter Relocation is proud to be the main sponsor of this charity event to support the Children of Zsámbék. More about Inter Relocations’s charity work: HERE

Congratulations to the organizers and members, we always love receiving good news like this!