Theatrical productions and all day programs*

Opening ceremony*

George Soros and
Dr. Judit Csehák, Chair of the Soros Foundation Equal Opportunities Programme Committee

Triumphs and tribulations - The road to an autonomous life*
Conference for disabled people

Since 1986, the Soros Foundation has run a separate programme of direct support to the movement promoting the interests and legal rights of disabled people and their families, the 'autonomous living' movement, with the aim of achieving social integration on the widest possible scale and real equality of opportunity in every area of life. Grant recipients will be discussing the issues of: Basic services, advice, information and training provided by autonomous living centres, Special services, with special regard to personal assistance, Residential homes and houses, special housing estates for the severely physically and sensorily disabled, The autonomous living movement after the passage
of the Equality of Opportunity Act

'The hospice concept is based on the rediscovery of natural death, rejecting not just the angry determination to heal but euthanasia too. In an age when we have lost the culture of death, we have lost or  are losing the culture of life too.' (Courier International)
The first Hungarian hospice organisation, the Hungarian Hospice Foundation, was founded in 1991 by Dr Alaine Polcz, psychologist and thanatologist. Over these eight years, as the hospice movement has become integrated with the health service, the number of organisations setting up hospice palliative wards or home care groups has increased steeply. The Soros Foundation supports the organisations activities: their basic and advanced training courses, model experiments and research into dying, death, companionship for the dying, palliative therapy and pain relief.
The 'Life at the End of the Road - Together for the Hospice' Conference will sum up the eight years of the movement's experience.

Former Buffalo Students meeting

The four Hungarian medical universities - DOTE, POTE, SOTE and SZOTE - and the New York State University set up a bilateral exchange programme in 1995, under which more than 70 Hungarian medical students went on 3-month study visits to Buffalo.
The Soros Foundation provided 6 million forints in support of the programme.

Health Plan Forum

Under the Town and Village Health Plan programme, the communities of villages and small towns receive Soros Foundation support for programmes which promote quality of life among community members. Over the last year some 300 villages set to writing applications.
At the forum, the 70 successful applicants will share their experiences with each other and the experts assisting the programme from the Fact Foundation and the NEVI Primary Preventive Working Group, as well as the Soros Foundation committee and staff.

Close of day: Dr Béla Buda, Member of the Soros Foundation Equality of Opportunity Programme Committee

Moldavian and Gyímes songs: Sung by: Livia Szluka, accompanied by Lehel Földi and friends