David Pressman, the United States Ambassador to Hungary, has been awarded the Wesley Prize by the John Wesley Theological College (WJLF). The award will be presented to him by Reverend Gabor Ivanyi, leader of the Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship (MET), according to a press release from the US Embassy Index reported.
The Wesley Prize was established in 2012 by the WJLF's senate to honor individuals who play an outstanding public role in Hungarian society, aligned with the values of MET and WJLF. Since its inception, the award has been given to five recipients: historian Randolph L Braham, philosopher Mihaly Vajda, sociologist Viktor Karady, horticulturist and politician Gyorgy Balint, and lawyer Daniel Karsai.
As Magyar Nemzet previously reported, MET's Wesley Janos Vocational School, Technical School, High School, and Primary Art School in Marokpapi was brought under the maintenance of the Kisvarda Vocational Training Center as of November 1. Ivanyi Gabor's organization writes,
The Marokpapi school fills a crucial gap, performing exemplary pedagogical and social work in the region and growing in popularity. We have 432 students, 150 of whom will take vocational or matriculation exams at the end of the school year. Enrollment numbers increase every year. The school trains workers and technicians in construction, social work, and agriculture sectors and provides opportunities for obtaining high school diplomas in night school courses. In recent years, hundreds of vocational and matriculation certificates have been earned here by predominantly disadvantaged young people.
The institution became financially unsustainable after the Hungarian State Treasury stopped transferring normative funding to the school in September, citing MET’s multi-billion-forint tax debt. As a result, the school’s former operator informed the Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg County Government Office that they could no longer maintain operations.
