The ECoC and Me - Ambassadors

Vujity Tvrtko

Vujity Tvrtko was born in 1972 in Pécs. His mother was a teacher, his father was a coal miner. He pursued his studies in his home town, then went to study journalism in the United States majoring in communication at the University of Miami. He worked at several daily papers as well as for the Hungarian Radio and the Hungarian Television. In 1997 he became a founding staff member of TV2 and since then his reports have often been taken over by international television channels. His documentary on the return of a Hungarian prisoner of war was shown in full or in part in 121 countries of the world. Vujity Tvrtko is a permanent guest lecturer at several national and international universities.

His professional recognition includes:

• Pulitzer Memory Award (1992)
• Pethő Tibor Memory Award of the Hemingway Foundation (1998)
• Dr. Szegő Tamás Award of the National Association of Hungarian Journalists (2000)
• Media Grand Prize of the Hungarian Red Cross (2000)
• Quality Award of TV2 (2000)
• Order of Merit of National Defence of the Republic of Hungary (1st class) (2001)

Together with Pál Szekeres Vujity Tvrtko was the official Hungarian ambassador of the anti-discrimination campaign of the European Union (2003-2007) and the official campaign figure of Pécs in the competition for the European Capital of Culture title. After Pécs had won the title, he became an ambassador of the Pécs2010 ECoC programme.

For years now Tvrtko has been using his professional recognition for supporting charitable aims. He has donated nearly one million dollars to people in need through different aid organisations since his films were shown. Using the revenues generated by his published books he and his wife established the Prize for the Heroes of Everyday Life, awarded every year in December, which also involves a significant amount of money.

Vujity Tvrtko is married, his wife, Gyöngyi Zsolnay is a five-time national champion and five- time national cup winner basketball player capped for the national women's basketball team 110 times. They have two children: Benjamin Vujity-Zsolnay (2002), Barnabás Vujity-Zsolnay (2003)