The Talent Bridges Programme is part of the long-term (20-year) National Talent Programme, and it is scheduled to last until mid-2014. Its direct antecedent was the Hungarian Genius Programme which focused as a first step on the establishment of a talent support network and on providing in-service training to talent support professionals. The Hungarian Genius Programme resulted in the establishment of the network of Talent Points in the Carpathian Basin, and it put in place a populous team of professionals with adequate qualification to detect/identify and develop talents.
The Talent Bridges Programme focuses on gifted/talented children and young persons. Its goal is to deepen the social integration of the talent support network; to trigger more active social participation; to convert talent support initiatives to practice. It stimulates the operation of the Talent Points; activates the network of professionals provided relevant in-service training and of the stakeholders of talent support in an effort to provide direct support to the talented youth and to advance their development. It defines as the centres of gravity the need to develop the potentials of the talented to the full, and to ensure the social utilisation of their results; to nurture the sense of social responsibility of the talented, and to “plough back” the energies of the mature, successful and dynamic talents into talent support.
Besides, it contemplates a domestic communication campaign addressing society in general and the groups contributing to talent support one by one to call their attention to the model examples, the best practices and the opportunities for action, and it launches a campaign within the European Union to raise awareness abroad of the Hungarian talent support model and the mutual benefits inherent in it, and to strengthen the relationships between the domestic and the foreign talent support workshops and programmes.
The main tenet of the Programme is that talent support is a national cause, as expressed by the relevant Parliamentary resolution: talent is a main driver and its expansion and utilisation fosters social and economic growth. That, in turn, makes it imperative to support the professional as well as the personality development of the talented youth, to make them capable of “enduring” their talent without suffering any psychological injury and of finding their place and ideal field of operation. Talent Bridges Programme is a priority project enjoying EU support; it is co-funded by the European Social Fund. The European Union and
the Hungarian State allocated the Programme a budget of almost HUF2 billion. Its activities are organized under 14 sub-projects. The Programme can be joined through the calls being announced on the www.tehetseghidak.hu website.
