The Flemish Government is making 250,000 euro available to support the cultural sector in Ukraine. The announcement that Flanders is to give a quarter of a million euro to help support cultural initiatives in the war-torn country was made by the Flemish Culture Minister Caroline Gennez (socialist) just before Christmas. The funding will go towards initiatives that include including mobile libraries and translations of books into Ukrainian.
Speaking when the announcement was made, Ms Gennez said that "One of Vladimir Putin’s explicit goals is to destroy Ukrainian identity and culture. With this support package, Flanders is helping to rebuild the cultural sector in Ukraine and enabling local initiatives that strengthen the mental well-being and resilience of the Ukrainian people through art and culture."
The Flemish cash will be channelled through the UN cultural organisation UNESCO that which has developed an action plan to support Ukrainian culture. The agreement was signed last month at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris.
Support for literature
The funding will support programmes that use art and culture to promote the mental well-being of war veterans, as well as the deployment of mobile libraries in areas where access to books has been disrupted by the war.
The action plan also includes measures to support the literary sector, particularly translations into Ukrainian. In addition to this, Ukrainian writers and translators are expected to take part in the Passa Porta Festival in Brussels in March.