On 31 March the Ministry of Culture launched first round of the EEA Grants Programme “Local Development, Poverty Reduction and Cultural Cooperation” open call “Support for the Creation of Professional Art and Cultural Products for Children and Youth” with total available funding of 1 915 412 euro.
The goal of the EEA Grants open call is to provide support for the development of cultural and artistic events that improve the accessibility of professional contemporary art and culture to children and youth in all regions of Latvia, and to increase the involvement of children and youth in art and culture.
The development of cultural awareness, ensuring access to diverse events for children and youth, is an essential part of education, since both the quality of life of individuals and states is influenced more and more by our ability to be creative, critically thinking, innovative and oriented towards collaboration. For the third year a cultural education programme “Latvian School Bag” is taking place in schools and one of its key principles is equality in access, meaning that children and youth from all around Latvia participate in this programme. Therefore, demand for new professional art and culture is growing rapidly.
With the support of EEA Grants within projects new cultural content will be created, as well as regularly available professional contemporary cultural events, which will be created in cooperation with donor project partners (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein). Activities promoting audience development will also be supported, that are targeted to the engagement of the audience, to gradual, meaningful interaction of children and youth with diverse cultural events, as well as to the development of cultural awareness and expression competences.
The funding available for one project is not less than 100 000 euro and not more than 250 000 euro. Projects must be implemented in cooperation with donor project partners – Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein.
Project applications for the open call “Support for the Creation of Professional Art and Cultural Products for Children and Youth” may be submitted until 2 July 2021.
More information on the EEA Grants Programme, Rules of the Open Call and application forms can be found in the EEA Grants website section “Project contests”.