The Danish Cultural Institute in Belarus

These days, all eyes are trained on Belarus whose population is fighting for the right to decide their future.

The Belarusian people can be supported in many ways. And here art and culture play an important role!

The Danish Cultural Institute has been active in Belarus for several years – our focus has been to strengthen the Belarusian civil society, including women’s rights, through art and culture.

At the moment, we are working on two concrete projects:
“The Travelling Democracy Lab / A Media Literacy Campaign” which aims at providing Belarusian citizens with tools to assess the credibility of media sources and distinguish facts from dis/misinformation. And “Voices of Violence” which seeks to create spaces where women can share their experiences of violence and sexism through videos, events and personal testimonies.

Women’s rights and gender equality is also an important point of focus for the Northern Lights Film Festival which the Danish Cultural Institute has contributed to for several years. The festival is based in Minsk – but will take place online this year due to the COVID-19 situation.

We are looking forward to strengthening our presence in Belarus even further in the nearest future as we are convinced that art and culture can make big difference – especially in turbulent times.

An important step was taken just yesterday when we, together with other central civil society organisations, participated in a meeting with the Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod to discuss future initiatives to support the Belarusian people.