Culture Helps

“Culture Helps / Культура допомагає” is an EU co-funded project aimed at assisting people who have been forced to move to safer regions of Ukraine or abroad because of the russian invasion of Ukraine. The project provides grant support to cultural managers and organisations that help displaced people integrate into new communities through culture. “Culture Helps” focus on (displaced) cultural professionals and organisations that can enable this process. Implemented by Insha Osvita (UA) and zusa (DE).

Would you be interested in making a financial contribution towards the project? Please reach out to us via email culturehelps@zusaculture.org.

Culture cannot stop the war, but it can help heal and create visions for the post-war future. With this project, we are aiming to help people from Ukraine, displaced by war – either inside Ukraine or fleeing to European countries – to express themselves culturally and to integrate into their new communities through cultural participation. Specifically, we support Ukrainian cultural professionals to find the way back to cultural practice and to integrate into host communities through artistic work and community art.

The project aims to improve the skills of cultural professionals and organisations focusing on integration through culture and working with people affected by war trauma. It also promotes networking and cohesion among displaced cultural professionals in Ukraine and abroad.

We implement the project in 2023–2025 and offer a multi-level program of grants, mental health support, online community calls and webinars, and offline meetings for displaced cultural professionals both in Ukraine and in exile and their peers in other Creative Europe countries.

The project offers three-level grant schemes within two years:

• 200 Individual grants of up to €1.000 for cultural professionals who work with displaced communities mostly on a volunteer basis and need financial and mental health support, particularly in Ukraine and neighboring Creative Europe countries (all EU Member States as well as certain non-EU countries). The focus of this grant is on supporting the mental well-being of individual Ukrainians in Ukraine and in exile who fled to countries participating in the EU’s Creative Europe programme.
• 80 Project grants of up to €5.000 for organisations based in Ukraine and other Creative Europe countries (all EU Member States as well as certain non-EU countries) These organisations should be working on cultural initiatives that help to integrate people (specifically families and children), who were forced to leave their homes because of the war in Ukraine, into a new context and local communities.
• 30 Collaboration grants of up to €40.000 that each support an international partnership of 2 or 3 organisations from Creative Europe countries (all EU Member States as well as certain non-EU countries) and Ukraine to develop joint international projects. The focus of the open call is on initiatives that help to integrate people, who were forced to leave their homes because of the war, specifically families and children, into a new context and local communities.

The project also includes the following activities:

• Regular online community calls as information sessions during the whole duration of the project to discover grant call details, exchange with colleagues and find partners.
• Consultation on grant conditions via emails, Telegram chats in Ukrainian and English.
• Development of a Toolkit on cultural work and social issues of integration of mental health awareness into cultural activities and working with people psychologically affected by war, and 6 webinars on how to implement the tools and methods from toolkit in cultural practice.
• 2 in-person networking meetings for cultural professionals and coordinators.