Cooking competition hold for the homeless in Budapest

About 300 homeless people queued up at the Vasas football field to get some hot meals; the food was prepared as part of the “Hunger Games” – 1st National Cooking Competition of the Homeless” (Éhezők Viadala – I. Országos Hajléktalanok Főzőversenye). An organizer admitted that the title might seem provocative, but it can help to draw attention to the event, reports index.hu.

Kata Tóth, one of the organizers said that the idea came up because of the immigrant crisis; many people complained that while everyone is just overwhelmed by the refugees, helps them with donations and food, the homeless question gets less and less attention. Although Tóth regularly organizes events at II. János Pál pápa square where the homeless can get hot meals, she wished to hold a bigger event to draw attention to the homeless question.

The aim of this competition, according to the organizers, is to “draw the Hungarians’ attention to the country’s poor people, to the homeless crisis, to the importance of help, and to the difficulty of reintegrating these people into the society.” It also aims to gather together those organizations which help the homeless, to make common goals and get to know each other better. Although the 14 groups did not only consist of homeless people, there was at least one in every group, and a volunteer helped out the only group where all the members were homeless.  

The event started at ten o’clock and the organizers advertised it at the homeless shelters, and encouraged everyone to help either with the cooking, or with the preparation, and that they are going to have hot meals around 2 or 3 o’clock. The groups started to organize the competition on Facebook, where everyone could post what they can bring; that’s how the first three winners had prizes: people brought blankets, sleeping bags, and watches.

Gábor Iványi, parson, and founder of the Fund for Helping the Poor (Szegényeket Támogató Alap), and László Kiss, ex-chairman of the Independent Trade Union of Medical Workers (Független Egészségügyi Dolgozók Szakszervezete) made up the jury.

The participants varied greatly: all sorts of groups took part in the competition and helped the organizers, such as The city is for everyone (A Város Mindenkié), and groups, which helped the immigrants, and László Póka’s I won’t give up my home (Nem Adom a Házamat).

The organizers would like to make this competition an annual event, with more and more participants every year.

based on an article of index.hu
translated by Adrienn Sain

Photo: Patrick Sauer/
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Source: http://index.hu/