“CHOICE-Belarus: Legacy and modernity”: First stage of the selection of participants is over

The coordinating board of the international program “CHOICE — Cultural Heritage” sums up the 1st stage of project proposals: 15 out of 60 applications are admitted to the 2nd round.

“The selection was difficult, but extremely interesting, which is the merit of applicants, many of whom are powerful figures in the culture of the country, who know problems with culture from practice and are able to propose interesting ideas”, - the team of the “CHOICE-Belarus: Legacy and modernity” notes.

Let us recall that the start of the program organized by the Association of Local Democracy Agencies ALDA (France) together with International Consortium “EuroBelarus” (Lithuania) took place in the middle of September. The witty English abbreviation hides a two-year project for protection and rethinking cultural heritage and enhancement of organizing potential of cultural NGOs: “CHOICE — Cultural Heritage: Opportunity for Improving Civic Engagement”.

Belarusan part of the project is based on the value of cultural legacy as a source for strengthening and developing modern Belarusan identity and European civilized choice of Belarus. The goals include: expanding the use of innovative approaches and spreading civil society initiatives for Belarus’ cultural heritage inclusion into the modern cultural life of the Belarusan society.

In its problematics, the submitted projects proved several actuals needs in Belarus’ social and cultural field: enhancing the culture of memory, preservation of traditional artistic practices; systematization and practical use of both broad and narrow historical and cultural data; securing online access to the stored knowledge about the Belarusan cultural heritage; establishment of local development strategies based on strong cultural identity and improvement of quality of life by means of culture.

All creative concepts underwent detailed analysis and were considered by 5 experts. The assessment of the projects was happening in accordance with the specially developed evaluation system by the following criteria: relevance, predictive efficiency with regard to the priorities of the program and realizability of the project in designated time and resource framework.

15 submitted creative concepts are invited to the 2^nd stage

The geography of projects that underwent the selection procedure covers the whole Belarus: regional towns, some regional centers, as well as surrounding areas, created by capital communities in regions. The spectrum of topics that were supported is very broad: both material as well as non-material cultural heritage, art (from folk to modern), design, theatre and other stage practices, legacy of art schools and ethnic communities, work with cultural landscape and museum pedagogics.

Each of the supported concepts reflects not only Belarus’ cultural legacy, but also modern challenges that every descendant of this cultural legacy faces. These are the challenges of interpretation, rethinking, and introducing achievements of culture to the social and cultural context and for the public use.

The competition was very high. Unfortunately, a number of interesting and prospective projects were unable to overcome this barrier; however, the coordinating team of the program is interested in the development of relations and keeping in touch with the applicants. Organizations, which were not admitted to the second round, can, nevertheless, use other possibilities of the project: find partners in Ukraine, Armenia, Moldova; get consultations; take part in the conferences and educational and discussion events that will be announced later in the program for 2016.

The applicants of the project concepts that were admitted to the 2^nd stage of “CHOICE-Belarus: Legacy and modernity” competition with the help of consultants and coaches of the program will continue further intensive work over their projects up to January 20, 2016. Selection process at the 2^nd round will be no less serious: the work will be continued with only 6-7 projects. Nevertheless, there are two additional opportunities for all the winners of the 1^st round:

to get important experience of organizational assessment and establishment of development strategy under the supervision of a consultant.

to take part in professional seminars and mini-internships in professional organizations in Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and Armenia;

All the 60 participants of the competition will receive letters with commentaries on their projects from the experts of “CHOICE-Belarus: Legacy and modernity” up to November 20 inclusive.

With wishes of productivity and creativity,

the team of the “CHOICE-Belarus: Legacy and modernity”.