The Creative Europe Desk Serbia and ‘Novi Sad 2021 – European Capital of Culture’ foundation organised a workshop dedicated to informal education of workers in institutions and organisations that prepare documentation for participation at open calls within the Creative Europe programme. This workshop was also a good opportunity for the interested cultural workers to inform about and train for possible application to the Creative Europe programme.
Vuk Radulović, Head of the Expert Team for International Cooperation and EU Funds, and Milica Rašković and Lazar Jovanov, members of the Expert Team for Participation, Inclusion and Education, addressed the workshop participants today.
While presenting the ‘Novi Sad 2021’ project, Mr Radulović stressed that by winning the European Capital of Culture 2021 title, Novi Sad positioned itself as the cultural centre of the region, and said that the European Capital of Culture project is focused on city development. Mr Radulović announced new public calls for projects, the plan being to implement more than 400 cultural projects during 2021. When it comes to international cooperation, the Days of Pécs, which was the European Capital of Culture in 2010, as well as the promotion of Paphos, a city in Cyprus that holds this prestigious title this year, are planned for this years, among other things. Mr Radulović expects that several other projects will be implemented together with the ‘Rijeka 2020’ team during 2017.
Lazar Jovanov, member of the Expert Team of the Foundation in charge of participation, inclusion and education, said that the focus of this co-called ‘year zero’ will be on project that improve infrastructure and participation of citizens through different actions and programmes. One of the main activities will be education, predominantly that of employees and managers in culture, in order to create a ‘staff’ that will be fully operational during 2021. The plan is for this staff to stay available to the city after the title year as a legacy project of the ‘Novi Sad 2021’.
Milica Rašković, also member of the Expert Team for Participation, Inclusion and Education, informed the workshop participants about the plan to form three cultural stations, i.e. three new small cultural centres in Novo Naselje and Klisa, as well as in Sremski Karlovci by 2021. As she announced, the first cultural station will be formed in Novo Naselje. The second project to be implemented is the ‘ECoC Caravan’, which will visit every part of Novi Sad and surrounding towns in order to encourage all citizens to participate, which is the key segment of the ‘Novi Sad 2021’ project, through different workshops, theatre, film screenings, concerts and other programmes.
It is worth noting that the workshop participants actively contributed to this discussion by giving their ideas and suggestions on how to prepare better for 2021. The main topic was how to bring cultural programmes closer to young people and how to promote the ‘Novi Sad 2021’ project.
The workshop of the Creative Europe Desk Serbia and ‘Novi Sad 2021 – European Capital of Culture’ foundation was held at the Congress Centre of the Novi Sad Fair, during the International Book Fair and ‘Art Expo’ art exhibition.
