Our history: the origins of the Charity Service of the Order of Malta date back to the time of the First Crusade to the Holy Land, i.e. 11th century AD. In those times the so called hospitallers, unpaid and committed volunteers, often members of a chivalric order, ordained knights or even priests, served, nursed, and provided care for the sick, the elderly, the disabled and the poor, as they had taken an oath to „tuitio fidei et obsequium pauperum”. Later from Jerusalem they moved to the island of Rhodes, then to Malta, and by the 19th century they acquired headquarters in Rome, and were called the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM for short or Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta).
What we do: since those times the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta (HCSOM for short) has not derived much from its predecessors’ mission. The very founding members and first “employees” of our association were unpaid volunteers. For the past 26 years, apart from our picturesque history of disaster management, first response to local and regional emergencies, setting up voluntary emergency medical services, and establishing and managing refugee camps, our main concerns have been to provide care and service for the homeless, the sick, the elderly, individuals with physical and/or mental disability, people with substance abuse problems and addiction, and economically/socially/geographically disadvantaged children, regardless of their faith, religious or political beliefs, colour or ethnicity, sex, national origin, and language.
We run and organize day centres, soup kitchens, shelters, hostels, outreach services, GP surgeries, infirmaries, a mobile TB screening unit, mobile tea van, mobile medical unit, family shelters, playgrounds, kindergartens, youth centres, family daycare, adult day care centres, nursing homes, home care services, social integration programmes, summer camps, a foster care network, a school for social caregivers, trainings for voluntary emergency medical services and aid workers, all with their professional social and/or medical staff and in accordance with the standards laid down by the appropriate Hungarian law.
Our role in EVS: our Charity has been an accredited European Voluntary Service (EVS)/Erasmus+ Key Action 1 youth mobility projects partner organization for the past 20 years.
As a receiving organization we have hosted approx. 250 volunteers so far. Every year we start this project in September.
As a sending organization we have sent approx. 270 volunteers so far.
And as a coordinating organization we coordinate the process of receiving and sending, we are present at every stage and phase, in order for everything to go smoothly, nice and easy. We are responsible for the administrative, monitoring, and organizing tasks that ensure the success of our projects. At the beginning of each year we have to make the preparations to apply for funding to the EU Commission and actually write the grant proposal which require a very demanding paperwork. Secondly we also are responsible for organizing and conducting the seminars, trainings and language courses for our volunteers, before sending and after receiving, to prepare them for the unknown, i.e. the Hungarians for overseas, the overseas volunteers for Hungary.
As part of the coordinating process we are in constant contact with the receiving organizations and with the volunteers throughout their whole one-year voluntary placement. And we solve the unsolvable. Last but not least we should not forget the never-ending but necessary accounting work we must do with which we get an ongoing and unstoppable support from our team of voluntary book-keepers.
Our coordinating team usually consists of three, though time to time we are joined by the young volunteers to give us a helping hand.
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