Given that we were basically poor, I was seriously disadvantaged. And poor we were indeed! And this poverty could be traced back to Dad’s. So, when I explain that our family wasn’t so and so, they weren’t educated, etcetara, then it can be traced back to the history of this family. My Dad’s parents and his other relatives were obviously illiterate, and it was dad’s generation, and especially the children of that generation, who had schooling. As Dad’s brother, Jakab Orsós formulated it „this family crammed 600 years into one hundred!” And this is sad, as you cannot live 600 years in one hundred without it taking its toll. For example, my Dad died at the age of 44, which, I must tell you, wasn’t by accident. Neither were all the other deaths at a young age within the family.
My career revealed that for me it didn’t come naturally to get a degree, to have enough self-confidence to trust my abilities. Also, it wasn’t easy either to believe that I have the ability to lead an office. This is a factor that we always have to bear in mind. Some maintained that an office should not be led by someone with a gipsy background. I went out of my way to do a perfect job! And, obviously, that took a lot of my time and effort. There were conflicts, too. And it wasn’t helped by the fact that I was after all an executive state secretary. My task was to fill an executive role in a politically very sensitive area, to do expert work. But my tasks were always bordering between the political and the expert, which required ongoing alertness. And I took this task hugely seriously!
I was at school in the days when no anti-gypsy verbal abuse could be heard. I have always been called Orsós, though. I had never heard any of that. When my teacher told me to take a preparatory course at the Imre Madach Secondary School, all she knew was that I was the daughter of bluecollar workers. She was also aware that we were poor and she may have known that Orsós is a typical gypsy name. So there was help on a private level. But there was some on an institutional level, too, as these trainings and preparatory courses were designed and developed into a system in the knowledge that there was a huge number of disatvantaged people that they hoped would be capable of catching up. There are many of us who feel gratitude as this enabled us to get a degree, find a job and that we were and still are useful and can contribute to society. That’s why I think it’s disastrous to lower compulsory school leaving age to 16, and when the ones born into bad circumstances are not regarded by definition as a potential talent. It is the task of the society and the government to do whatever they can to provide these people with degrees, jobs and a decent livelihood to benefit themselves and the whole society.
She was born in Budapest in 1954. Her father, a descendant of (beás) Gypsies, was first an army officer and then a car driver. Her mother was a shop assistant. She had two brothers. Eva Orsós graduated from Imre Madách Secondary School. In the same year she became a member of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party. She earned her first degree in Eötvös Loránd University, at the Faculty of Primary and Pre-School Education in 1975. She taught in an elementary school between 1975 and 1978. She got her second degree at the Teacher Training College of ELTE. She completed an university degree in Russian Studies at ELTE as a correspondence student. In 1978 she started her maternity leave. In c.1981-1984 she was back teaching at one of the 6th district primary schools. Then she worked for the district party committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party. She earned yet another degree in 1988, this time in Adult Education. She set up the Department of Information and Community Relations in the Ministry of Social and Health Affairs in 1988, which she was a leader of up until 1990. She was a close collaborator to Judith Csehák, a Socialist Party Representative from 1990 to 1995. She was appointed Honorary Deputy State Secretary in her capacity of the Head of the Office for National and Ethnic Minorities between 1995 and 1998. Then, she worked for the Council of Europe as an expert in social welfare issues and was an employee of the Mediator Foundation. In 1999-2002 she was counsellor of the mayor in the 7th District of Budapest in the areas of social welfare and ethnicity... From 2002 onwards she was back in the Ministry of Social and Health Affairs again as Deputy State Secretary. Among other things, she was the founder of the Council of the Affairs of the Elderly. Between 2003-2010 she was the HR manager of National Lottery, Hungary (Szerencsejáték Zrt), one of the Hungarian companies with the highest revenue. She launched a number of corporate responsibility initiatives and, at the same time, was an active member of the women’s branch of the Hungarian Buiness Leaders Forum.
At present she is the president of the largest organisation in elderly affairs called Let the Aged Live! (Életet az Éveknek) as well as the National Representative Body of Pensioners.In her private life she helps her daughter, Agi Szalóki, who is a world music singer.Throughout her career she has worked in the state, public and nonprofit sectors. She has assisted the operation of several national as well as international organisations for the protection of minorities. In 2001 her achievements were acknowledeged by the Miklós Radnóti Prize Against Racism.
