Unique free language learning opportunity for foreigners in Budapest

Mira Ház (Mira Intercultural Community) is an outstanding organisation in Budapest. It is one of the few places in the country where refugees and immigrants can learn Hungarian for free. Children can attend various tutoring sessions, and they can participate in a variety of integration programmes. These programmes include origami workshops, concerts and special community evenings that aim to bring people together and make them learn about each other’s culture.

Mira Ház

24.hu wrote that refugees arriving in Hungary are entitled to one hundred Hungarian language lessons due to their protection status. However, no government body organises these lessons. Mira Ház, or Mira Intercultural Community, helps refugees and immigrants with integration and finding a community. On top of that, they provide access to Hungarian language learning. Eszter Kisgyura, the coordinator of Mira Ház, has first-hand experience of the challenges of living abroad, which gives her the inspiration to help people overcome the initial difficulties when arriving in a new country. She lived in various countries herself including Uganda, Rwanda, India and the Netherlands, which helped her gain a high level of multicultural awareness that she puts into practise every day at work.

Mira Ház holds intercultural nights for its members, but there are plenty of other fun activities too. Eszter says:

Officially, there are five of us working here, but we don’t rely only on our own effort, we are a community that equally involves all of its members. If someone wants to practise Chinese meditation, or a Ukrainian member wants to try glass painting, or perhaps an Indian person wants to start a knitting workshop, we all try to make it happen together as a team.

The members

At the moment, there are roughly 300-500 active members at Mira Ház. These are the people who visit the events regularly, organise activities, as well as engage in voluntary work. One of the most active members of the community is Reza Sayed Mustafa. He arrived in Hungary in 2014 and started learning the language right away. Now, he is proud of his adept Hungarian language skills. He has been volunteering at the organisation since 2016. He organises many programmes, and on top of that, he is the coordinator of Mira’s football team.

Mira’s work in building a community

Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, there has been an increased demand for family activities. Therefore, Mira Ház makes sure to hold weekly events to entertain the little ones and their parents. Sadly, the Covid-19 pandemic temporarily brought the organisation to a standstill, so they had to recruit fresh energetic new faces as volunteers. Today, they have a big enough staff to teach Hungarian to many Ukrainian children and tutor them to prepare them for school. Many people visit Mira Ház for the sake of learning the local language. They keep coming back as they say the organisation feels like a safe haven amidst all the difficulties and sorrow of losing their homes. Apart from that, they enjoy the great community atmosphere too. Besides, Mira Ház not only provides solution to the scarce language learning opportunities foreigners often face in the country, but it also removes the barriers to access to adequate information. At Mira, members can share useful tidbits with each other, which helps them tackle common everyday issues and obstacles in Hungary.