Erste Foundation 2008 launched for the second time the Award for Social Integration in 8 countries – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia. The Award aims to give recognition and promote organisations and projects that intend to create a stable and just society which includes disadvantaged and marginalised groups. ERSTE Foundation announced on May 25 the names of the 20 winners of the second round of the ERSTE Foundation Awards for Social Integration. These twenty innovative projects from CEE will receive €295,000 at the Award Ceremony in Bucharest on June 25th.
As a kind of confirmation of the importance of cultural and artistic engagement in the field of social integration is the fact that from 20 organizations were nominated for the award, 4 of them works in the filed of culture and art and they selected to this Award with their artistic and cultural project. These are: project In/visible City, DAH Theatre Research Centre from Serbia, Karantena centar - kulturni i društveni centar, Art Radionica Lazareti from Croatia, Restart Media Centar, restart from Croatia, Wizards from O.Z. - Theater in Prison, NGO ApsArt, Centar za pozorišna istraživanja from Srbia.
Thus this Award is a unique proof that arts and culture have a strong potential to deal with integration of those who are pushed on the edge of society. There are numerous cultural organisations which are dealing with topics that fall within the scope of social integration and are approaching these themes with their own tools. Their projects are more or less successful in the field of social integration. Also, projects realised by the organisations which are not primarily engaged in the cultural area, are often most successful in the projects that concern cultural content, of course if regarded from the perspective of the media attention they gain.
Since its inception in early 2007, the ERSTE Foundation Award for Social Integration has considerably grown in scope and size: the Award has almost quadrupled growing from EUR 85,000 in 2008 to EUR 295,000 and the list of participating countries has been extended. ERSTE Foundation’s Social Affairs Programme aims at shaping a society in Europe that enables equal participation of all people and in which these people are ready to take on responsibility and use it for the common good.
For more information visit: www.integrationaward.org.
Con etiqueta:
art, award, culture, erste foundation, social integration
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