Untitled - Narodowe Centrum Kultury

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their cooperation in carrying out public tasks in the cultural field; designed
to verify links between the utilisation of digitised cultural resources/educational
materials and social capital development), dedicated
to participation in culture and to cultural practices, related to
people working in the cultural field and to new cultural phenomena.
Grants may also be awarded for publications, presentations and other
forms of sharing research results. Who can apply: local governmentrun
cultural institutions (except those co-run by the Polish Minister
of Culture and National Heritage), NGOs, public and non-public universities,
businesses. The minimum grant amount is 30,000 PLN, the
maximum amounts are 150,000 or 300,000 PLN. It is also possible to
obtain partial funding for a period of two successive years. Information
on the programme is available on the website of the Ministry of
Culture and National Heritage at www.mkidn.gov.pl and look under
the Finanse section and the Programy Ministra subsection.
Cultural Centre+ is another notable programme, run by the
National Centre for Culture. The primary goal of the programme is to
strengthen the potential and the role of cultural centres and foster attitudes
of active participation in culture as well as to enhance the attractiveness
of cultural services. It also aims to initiate the process of
turning Polish cultural centres into modern centres of local culture.
The programme has three areas of focus: encouraging the development
of professional skills of the staff of cultural centres and assisting
in building strategies of operation and development of local cultural
institutions; supporting cultural centres’ programme activities;
and providing assistance in making changes to the infrastructure of
cultural centres. The above areas correspond to the following three
priorities: I. Training, II. Development, III. Infrastructure. Additionally,
a Support Network is being built which includes: publications on the
methods of cultural education and cultural centre management; an
online magazine; an interactive website and forum; a database of cultural
education projects that can be run in local cultural centres; and
a database of culture animators and educators as well as competitions
and opportunities for cooperation between cultural centres and
state-run cultural institutions. The Support Network is open not only
to the programme’s beneficiaries – that is, cultural centres run by local-governments
and organised by rural, urban-rural or urban communes
(with special emphasis on communes with populations up to
20,000) – but also to other cultural institutions which do not participate
in the programme. Each project must include the number of partners
specified in the relevant priority. The programme offers financial
and non-financial support (depending on priority). To find out more,
visit www.domkulturyplus.pl.
private domestic funds
The Association of Creative Initiatives “ę” runs Senior Citizens in
Action, a nationwide grant competition supported by the Polish-
American Freedom Foundation. The competition supports projects
which: engage elderly people in activities that benefit their communities;
involve initiatives based on intergenerational cooperation;
encourage volunteering among elderly people. The competition’s
areas of focus include educational and cultural activities: cultural,
artistic and educational projects that meet the needs of local communities,
launched and run with active participation of elderly people.
Who can apply: persons aged 55 and above, who may submit
their project individually or together with a person aged 30 or under.
Grants are awarded to projects developed by people over 55 years
of age in collaboration with a chosen organisation or non-profit institution
such as a university of the third age, foundation, association,
cultural centre, library or housing association. The amount of
grants range from 5,000 to 12,000 PLN. The maximum amount of
funding is 90% of the project’s total cost. Projects must have local
relevance – they should be carried out in one or several communities
(city area, city, town, village, commune, district), and should
run for up to 10 months. For more information on the competition,
visit www.seniorzywakcji.pl.
Young Cultural Managers is another project run by the Association
of Creative Initiatives “ę”. Since 2002, the project has gone
through five editions and had over 100 young participants who staged
over 80 cultural projects throughout Poland. Financial support was
provided by the following institutions: Ministry of Culture and National
Heritage, J&S Pro Bono Poloniae Foundation, Civic Initiatives Fund,
Rural Development Foundation and Orange Foundation. The project
is aimed at young people aged 15–25 from villages and small towns
who share their passions with others by running their first independent
cultural and social projects in their own towns and villages, e.g.
creative workshops, neighbourhood activities, activities for children,
meet-the-artist events etc.
The latest edition was held between 2009 and 2010. The Association
has plans to continue the project. a special edition of the
project, called Young Managers in Libraries, was held between May
2010 and October 2011, as part of the Library Development Programme
1 . Participants included 27 young cultural managers, 26 librarians
and 27 libraries from across Poland. This edition featured
workshops and a grant competition providing grants of up to 2,700
PLN to cultural and social projects. For more information on the project,
go to www.e.org.pl and http://mmk.e.org.pl.