Euroregion Baltic, Baltic Sea Culture Institute in Gdansk, Kaliningrad team of activists and Estonian Women’s Studies and Resource Centre ENUT, under the project leadership of Intercult Productions from Sweden, have just kicked off a BSR project aiming at empowering representatives of most vulnerable groups, especially women, in the ever digitalising times of pandemia and post-pandemic.
Together, we – women experts and participants – want to build a feeling of identity, belonging, continuity and agency. We are reaching out to women artists, activists and creatives who may feel isolated, depressed and at a loss as the result of COVID-19 restrictions and the world moving more and more towards digital relations. Using tools of culture and traditional cultural activities we plan to bring traditions and demands of current times together.
Basing on the intangible cultural heritage of the BSR and its localities such as embroidery, weaving, herb gathering, cooking close to nature, singing or producing music, we want to create bonds and exchanges both in physical and virtual reality. As the result of local real-life workshops and online exchanges and meeting, we will produce a tool kit as guidance for further use which will base on the joint pool of experience and a special survey. In our work, we will use a circular approach promoting the EU Green Deal, EUSBSR and Sustainable Development Goals.
The ultimate goal is to create a stronger, healthier and more resilient society with everybody on board, as well as a more friendly physical and digital space.
Creative Waves – Women Sisterhood for Change project – updates Dec 2021
Empowering women in the Baltic Sea Region by meeting traditional crafts, local traditions and customs etc with the digital modern world and its demands for change is our goal. Women active in knitting, weaving, storytelling, herb gathering or traditional cooking gather online with creative and digital women experts to get more confidence, show their achievements and learn about the digital world and tools to help them function in the COVID times and beyond. They also meet at international events (online and in flesh) to exchange experience, learn, even more, look together for Baltic traditions and identity. Hopefully in arranging the events while implementing the project its partners will bring together more experienced women and the youth as well as migrant women – to enrich the exchange and help participants be more rooted, open and self-assured. The project is also to help learn about and implement EU key policies like EU Green Deal, European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The project partners under the leadership of Intercult Productions in Stockholm are: Baltic Sea Culture Centre in Gdańsk, Association of Polish Communes Euroregion Baltic, Estonian Women’s Studies and Resource Centre (ENUT) and a team of women activists from Kaliningrad Oblast. The project lasting from September 2021 to September 2022 is co-finessed by the Council of the Baltic Sea States Small Project Facility
General information about the Call and CBSS Funding Instrument:
The 2021 CBSS PSF call focused on innovative solutions for strengthening resilience and inclusiveness in the BSR during a period of crisis.
The CBSS was looking for:
- Innovative projects promoting the development of inclusive programmes designed to support groups particularly vulnerable to the pandemic and its effects, in order to offer them alternatives and strengthen their exit pathways from the crisis.
- Innovative projects that assess the impact of the crisis on domestic violence or develop strategies, tools and collaboration to build stronger, more accessible, inclusive and sustainable systems for child protection.
- Innovative projects build on analysis of crisis impacts on societies and economies, which aim at proposing strengthening of societal resilience in a future, especially taking into account cross-sectoral character of problems and solutions (ex. culture in time of crisis and as a tool to build resilience and help societal and economic recovery, youth as vulnerable group in time of crisis and as a group able to develop innovative recovery strategies and projects).
About the selection
By the deadline 31st of March 2021, the CBSS Secretariat had received 55 submitted PSF applications.
The type of partners in this year’s call have been diverse, varying from NGOs and research centers to public institutions and universities.
The projects have been selected to reflect the selection criteria in the PSF manual, as well as the wording in the PSF 2021 call. The projects selected:
- Present a direct relevance to at least one of the three CBSS long-term priorities,
- Align with the selected PSF call 2021 subject, Innovative solutions for strengthening resilience by promoting inclusiveness and protection of most vulnerable societal groups in the BSR during a period of crisis
- Provide substantial added value for the Baltic Sea Region cooperation,
- Display quality and a sustainable character,
- Involve relevant partnership constellations, where partners are well established and includes at least three CBSS Member States.
- List of the selected projects:
