The Global Outreach Hungary Foundation
Introducing the Global Outreach Program
Range of action of the Hungarian foundation
The Board of Global Outreach Hungary Foundation
Introducing the Global Outreach Program
The Global Outreach Program was founded in the United States in the beginning of the 1990’s. The founders, Fr. Mike Carroll Catholic priest and Mary Piette program director have set the program’s mission to help the strengthening of the Catholic Churches of former socialist countries of Eastern and Central Europe (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Hungary). They have wished to achieve this by giving young Catholic students a one-year scholarship to America, whereby they get the chance to go to a Catholic high school and stay with a Catholic family for an academic year.
Throughout the one-year foreign experience the students did not only acquire a native-like command of the English language, but also got to know how the American Catholic Church and its communities work in order to enrich their own families’, schools’ and parishes’ lives on their arrival back, utilizing the knowledge they have gained. With the help of the program more than 200 Hungarian, Slovak, Czech, Lithuanian and Latvian students got the chance of studying in the cities of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Nebraska since 1991.
The Global Outreach program is not merely a great opportunity to learn the English language, but it has a goal of developing the talent of Catholic leadership in youth, with which they can serve their Church and their homeland within their families, schools, parishes and other communities. The program sees the best way to fulfill these aims is by learning the so-called servant leadership. From the last year on the students in the United States get a monthly assignment in order to get to know themselves and realize their talents, and to see how they can be of use of their communities. They write a report of their achievements and they evaluate the reports together, and they talk and brainstorm over them. The fact that many of the students who had already arrived home from their one-year experience have started to lead children’s groups in Catholic small-communities, or have started to organize their own such groups.
In the latter years, while keeping the principle goals and aims of the program, the founders have drawn up new ambitions as well. The main activity of the program is still providing the one-year scholarship in the United States, but through the fact that they now place more Global Outreach students from different nationalities to a high school, friendships and adventures experienced together bind young Slovak, Czech, Lithuanian, Latvian and Hungarian students to each other with stronger ties.
Thank to the development of the Church life that our country – together with the other countries of the area – has undergone, our program has become a helper of the East-Central European integration of Hungary and the Hungarian Catholic Church throughout the facilitation of letting the youth spend a year in a foreign country in a Catholic, nurturing environment. It is still an emphatic goal of the program for the students to learn the English language on a close to native-speaker’s level, and be able to utilize it through their openness, the development of their communicative skills, and through realizing their given talents.
Range of action of the Hungarian foundation
Besides facilitating the American scholarship to the Hungarian students, the foundation carries out the following activities:
Conferences, presentations, camps
The Foundation eventually organizes conferences, presentations and other events held in both English and Hungarian language for its protégés and the Global Outreach alumni. Each year the students who recently arrived home hold presentations about their experiences to help the preparations of the new students, and all interested.
Each year one of the countries taking part in the Global Outreach program organize a one-week summer camp for the students freshly chosen for the program, where they can meet American teenagers, the other new students, and the arriving alumni. The Global Outreach students keep contact in the United States as well; they take part in several meetings throughout the academic year in the center of the organization.
Contact with Central European Catholic students and schools
The Foundation keeps contact with Czech, Slovakian, Latvian and Lithuanian high schools, and aims to tighten bonds with the Hungarian high schools that its protégés go to. Through this network of connections it is possible for the Foundation to act as a mediator between students and schools, and thus help the Central and East European Catholic schools and Catholic communities to approach and cooperate with each other.
Hosting American students
Besides the east European exchange program the Foundation organizes the hosting of visiting American Catholic students. These American students are mostly the ones whose families have hosted Hungarian students within the framework of the Global Outreach program. While this student stays in Hungary for a longer period of time he or she studies Hungarian language, goes to a Hungarian high school (with the help of the Foundation), and stays with the family of the student that his or her family has hosted before.
This is a supplementary activity of the Foundation that it carries out according to the demand and interest of the Hungarian families and American students.
The Board of Global Outreach Hungary Foundation
Gonda Bence - President of the Board
He graduated from the Piarist high school in Szeged, and spent an academic year in the USA in 2003-2004. Previously he has been part of the CTP program.
dr. Vadász Viktor - Secretary of the Board
He was born in Székesfehérvár in 1979, graduated from the Cistercian class of the József Attila High School in Buda in 1997. In the academic year of 1997-1998 he attended high school in Waukesha in the USA, after his arrival he took his degree at the faculty of law of Pázmány Péter Catholic University. He has been working at the Fejér County Court since his graduation from the university in 2003, presently he is secretary of court at the Dunaújváros City Court. Since 1992 he has been the member of the Regnum Marianum community, since 1998 he has been exercising leading duties as well. As the secretary of the board of the Foundation his role is handling administrative and legal issues.
Kondé Zsófia - Board member
She was born in 1987 in Kecskemét, carried out both her grade school and her high school studies in Karolina School in Szeged. She spent the academic year of 2004-2005 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where attended Notre Dame Academy. Upon her arrival she took the state examination in English and graduated from high school. At present she is the student of Eötvös Loránd Science University, faculty of history, her major is archeology.
Németh Dániel - Board member
He attended the Ciszterci Szent Imre Gimnázium of Buda, and graduated in 2006. Meanwhile he spent a two semesters in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he attended Cretin-Derham Hall High School, a Catholic private school. Presently he is a second-year student of the Budapest Corvinus University, majoring in economics.
Dulics Péter - Board member
Tolvaj Ákos - President of Advisory Board
He was born on 9th November, 1983 in Budapest. He graduated from Cistercian Saint Steven High School of Székesfehérvár in 2003. He spent the academic year of 2000-2001 in David City, Nebraska. He took the advanced state examination in English in the fall of 2001, now he studies at Eötvös Loránd Science University, faculty of arts, majoring in English and Aesthetics. He teaches English in nursery schools.
Nábráczky-Hajós Anna - Advisory Board member
Ulicsák Nándor - - Advisory Board member
Tomcsányi Miklós - Founder
Founder, has been in contact with the Program since 1997, came home from the USA in 2000. He has been in charge of representing the Program in Hungary since 1998, which has taken an official form in the framework of the Foundation since 2005. “The Foundation’s range of activities is expanding continuously, our success is reflected by the growing number of Hungarian students studying in the United States each year.”
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