Local services
In the spirit of welcoming mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers, the Municipal Social Service of the City of Debrecen (abbreviated as VSzSz in Hungarian) organised its third Family Day at the retirement home on Pallagi Road on 8 May 2025.
Over two hundred people attended the event, where the retirement home residents celebrated with their family members. As the head of the social services, Lajosné Nagy mentioned in her welcoming speech, “The relatives expect the institution to organise at least one or two events a year where they can participate with their elderly loved ones and socialise together. One such event is related to Mother’s Day, as mothers symbolise the togetherness of families and the warmth of love they can pass on to their family members, even from here, from the institution. Moreover, not only to them!”
She said that the institution’s employees care for the residents with love; in return, they receive abundant love from the elderly, and thus they can even feel that several mothers from the residents are their own. She also revealed that it is good to feel the trust the relatives place in them, which they would like to strengthen with this family day.
In her welcoming speech, the city’s deputy mayor responsible for care policy, Diána Széles, emphasised that countless things in our lives are about attachment. “We are attached to our mothers, parents, and family members,” she said, adding that everyone that the city’s social service institutions dealing with elderly care can create the conditions for the possibility of attachment between family members and the ability to recall the warmth of home to remain strong even when a relative is placed in a nursing home. This family day and similar events that provide shared experiences also serve this purpose.
According to Diána Széles, the employees in the social institutions in Debrecen work to make the people they care for feel as comfortable as possible, in the nicest, most caring environment possible, and as happy as possible. “It is good to live in a city like this, in a community like this. Debrecen wants to run institutions where love and happiness are a matter of course. We must give this love to each other every day, care for each other every day, and ask each other how they are doing. If they say they are happy, our lives are better too,” Diána Széles highlighted.
After the welcoming speeches, the family day continued with a joint programme by the institution’s employees and residents, a performance by young university students, and playful programmes providing shared experiences.
Source and photo credit:debrecen.hu
