Finding My Voice and Daring to Dream

“Through football I have become more courageous”

My voice was not always filled with confidence. The person I am today is not someone I ever thought I was. Thanks to football, mentoring and employability workshops, I could dare to dream of a brighter future. That future is now.

My name is Mária Hornyák, and I am an active participant in the employability programme at Oltalom Sport Association in Budapest, Hungary, a programme that through football and workshops helps young, unemployed members of society, get the skills needed to seek employment.

Budapest, at the best of times, is a difficult place to find employment.

For young people, this is especially true, particularly so for someone like me, with special needs.

I had a job interview, once. It was for a sweet confectionary company. They are pretty famous in my part of the world.

My voice is a tiny bit slower than what people are used to, and I was really quite scared.

The interview took place over the phone. When I called up and began to speak, the interviewer laughed through the speaker at me and mocked me for my slowed-down, timid voice.

My confidence, already low, was completely shattered.

You see, in my past I had some mental health issues, and spent a lot of time in hospital.  It was an incredibly difficult time.

It’s a sensitive issue that I don’t like to talk about. I hope that you can understand.

What this meant was that I missed out on a lot of opportunities to develop confidence in my social skills, and that, coupled with my special needs, meant that I was not really prepared for making my own way in the world when the time came.

Being in large crowds of people for example, making my voice heard, things like that, scared me.

I preferred sometimes to not speak at all.

I had another interview for a job at McDonalds. I had another similar experience.

I did not know what I was going to do.

Knowing all of this, it may surprise you to learn that I actually love to sing.

I had been a member of a youth choir for many years and joined up with a choir in Hungary for people with special needs a few years ago. It was here that I would learn about Oltalom.

While the choir developed my confidence to sing, it was at Oltalom where I truly found my voice.

At Oltalom I was made a part of a programme to help young people like me gain the skills necessary to seek and find employment through a football and employability programme.

Back when I joined I was a little oversensitive and struggled to deal with situations I had not anticipated.

At the beginning of my journey, tears were sometimes shed and I would often arrive late to trainings.

I could become overwhelmed by my lack of confidence.

Fortunately, the programme assigned me a mentor, Tímea. We have developed a great friendship.

She makes sure I never get too down and in the beginning, ensured that I found it within myself to never give up on Oltalom.

I am so glad I didn’t.

Football taught me how to work in a team. How to have the courage to open up, make friends and to have the confidence in myself to speak! No one here was laughing at my voice because there was nothing to laugh at. They helped me to see how good my speaking skills could be!

I felt so inspired that I practically shook with energy and I began to get a lot better at dealing with misunderstandings and potential conflicts, and figuring out how to stand alone in a team environment.

Before football came into my life, my thoughts were scattered, and I struggled to focus on anything for too long.

Since football has come into my life, my thoughts have become clearer, my feelings have become calm and I am at peace.

Thanks to football, speaking up and working with other people was starting to become not much of a problem at all.

When it came to the employability training, the football aspect helped greatly by allowing me to focus on my daily tasks much more.   

This was very important, because it was during the employability training that I learned valuable practical skills that would help me get employment in the future.

Through scholarship funding from the UEFA Foundation for Children, I was able to purchase a laptop and a sewing machine.

The laptop and the sewing machine were tailored to the certain needs I have and were so important in getting me into the workforce.

You see, within the employability programme, you have many options available to you in regards to potential career paths. In case you could not already tell, I decided to become a seamstress!

Thanks to the skills I developed I now work part-time sewing clothes for a small company that hires people with learning difficulties. My dream one day is to sew the jerseys of professional footballers!

I am still involved in the Oltalom programme, and still have my mentor, Tímea.

She is available to contact whenever I want or need to.

One evening I felt really low and worried, and didn’t think I could face the next day at work. I rang Tímea and she found a way to make me feel encouraged for the day ahead.

She always does.

If I didn’t have a mentor, if I didn’t have that connection, I wouldn’t be working today.

Sometimes it’s hard, but through football, my mentor and the skills and mental strength I developed at Oltalom, I now feel confident that I can keep moving forward.

I am no longer the shy timid girl that hides away from conversation, nor am I afraid to speak.