Press Releases

Budapest, November 3, 2011 12:00

In November and December 2011 those calling or sending a text message through the Donation Line 1788 hello tomorrow! will be supporting the Kórházi Önkéntes Segítő Szolgálat (Voluntary Hospital Helpers Service) Foundation. Magyar Telekom has successfully operated the Donation Line for seven years and considers it important to help, through its support, the improvement of Hungary's health care and the enhancement of its services.

The Voluntary Hospital Helpers Service Foundation (KÖSSZA) has been operating as a public benefit organisation since 2001 and currently it is one of the most important organisations engaged in volunteering in Hungary. As a Methodological Centre it helps to create and develop the voluntary programs of close to 40 hospitals, institutions and civil bodies in Hungary, organises the recruitment, involvement, training and mediation of volunteers; the organisation manages close to 500 volunteers. The organisation's mission is to popularise and spread volunteering and to enhance its general social prestige.

The Foundation would like to use the donations received through the Donation Line to increase the popularity of volunteering and volunteer programs, to expand their network and to launch 6 new volunteer programs in hospitals and social institutions.

The Foundation provides the framework in which people can find scope for their selfless willingness to help, in the form of voluntary helping activity, which provides specific help, psychological support and personal care for people who have to stay in hospital for longer or shorter periods of time. With this activity it also promotes the creation of numerous other volunteer programs and actions, as well as coordinating the work of volunteer programs of the organisations engaged in social and health services. Apart from the operation of the voluntary hospital service, the organisation continuously recruits new volunteer helpers, selects among them and provides theoretical and practical training for them, while seeking out and informing potential recipient organisations. It assigns trained and experienced volunteer helpers to other institutions and, by training volunteer coordinators at the host institutions it helps to launch and coordinate new volunteer programs. The organisation coordinates an increasing number of volunteer programs in Hungary. Their Methodological Centre has become one of the major volunteering centres in the Central Hungarian region. The aim of the operation of the Centre is to transfer experience to interested health, social and educational institutions, civil and church organisations. The foundation has launched the first Donations Shop in Hungary on a trial basis and it has been successfully operating right from the start.


More information about the foundation and its activity is available at the web site: www.korhazionkentes.hu.


Telekom's Donation Line, also known from the slogan "1788 - the people's number - is equally accessible from Magyar Telekom's wire line and mobile phone networks. The fee both for the call and text message is HUF 100, which is free of VAT (with the exception of calls initiated from Domino top-up cards). The total amount of the calls received in the months of November and December, 2011 will be granted as the callers' donation to the Voluntary Hospital Helpers Service Foundation, where the amount will be used towards popularizing volunteering and launching 6 new volunteer programs.