More than culture

The Belarusian Council for Culture together with its colleagues from other institutions is preparing a roadmap for the European Commission on the preservation of Belarusian culture. The document will be presented in Brussels on May 11th - this is a proposal to Europe's largest donor on the areas, priorities, and amount of aid.

The road map has been created to outline the needs of Belarusian civil society in the sphere of culture, to explain why this demand corresponds to the interests of European citizens, and to recommend to the donors how to act - how much money to allocate for this sphere, how to structure the aid and what results to expect. We hope that this proposal will be taken into consideration in the programming period of the European Commission for the next three years.

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European officials used to consult with the target groups when setting the support limits and drawing up the action plan. We tried to improve this practice and make it so that the beneficiaries voice not only their needs but also their priorities and the measures to be taken. As a result, we reached an agreement with the European Commission that the representatives of the civil society and beneficiaries shall organize themselves and propose for approval their vision of support programs for the next program period. If we succeed in this, we are likely to have a chance that the European Commission and the big European (and not only) donors will listen to us, although this does not mean that they will accept everything we propose.

— explains Taćciana Pašavałava, one of the drafters of the document.

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European officials used to consult with the target groups when setting the support limits and drawing up the action plan. We tried to improve this practice and make it so that the beneficiaries voice not only their needs but also their priorities and the measures to be taken. As a result, we reached an agreement with the European Commission that the representatives of the civil society and beneficiaries shall organize themselves and propose for approval their vision of support programs for the next program period. If we succeed in this, we are likely to have a chance that the European Commission and the big European (and not only) donors will listen to us, although this does not mean that they will accept everything we propose.

— explains Taćciana Pašavałava, one of the drafters of the document.

The draft document has already been presented to the General Directorate of the European Commission (DG NEAR) - now it is being finalized together with the representatives of different cultural spheres. Similar roadmaps are being prepared for other thematic sectors of democratic Belarus (education, mass media, and civil society in general) - on May 11th they will be presented to the representatives of the European Commission and the structures that are willing to help Belarus.

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We will get feedback from officials of the European Commission and representatives of the EU countries on the sums and priorities. After coordination, everything will then be forwarded to those who develop the goals and limits of the European Commission's support for the next three years.

— Tatiana Pashavalova says.

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We will get feedback from officials of the European Commission and representatives of the EU countries on the sums and priorities. After coordination, everything will then be forwarded to those who develop the goals and limits of the European Commission's support for the next three years.

— Tatiana Pashavalova says.

Maksim Žbankoŭ, Mikałaj Chalezin and Anžalika Krašeŭskaja, representatives of ICOMOS, Belarusian Beehive, the Center for European Transformation, the Belarusian Independent Film Academy, and others also contributed to the document.

Work on the roadmap can bring millions of euros worth of support for Belarusian culture from the European Union and EU member states.