The Hungarian government has launched the 2016/17 Kőrösi Csoma Sándor scholarship programme aimed at helping Hungarian diaspora communities preserve their language and national identity.
As part of the scheme, which is being launched for the fourth time, 100 scholarship recipients are being sent to build social networks with ethnic Hungarian communities around the world, István Grezsa, government commissioner for policy for Hungarians abroad, said at the programme’s opening ceremony. Scholarship recipients travelling within Europe will visit ethnic kin in Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, the UK, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden and Turkey. Countries outside Europe include the United States, Australia, South Africa, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and New Zealand. Grezsa said 130 of the 150 students involved in the Körösi Csoma Sándor and the similar Petőfi Sándor scholarship programmes are new participants.
