Cultural Rights - Access to Culture
The Ministry implements the activities and projects aimed at promoting the access of people to culture through institutional and financial support. The Ministry established a subsidy programme entitled, Cultural Vouchers to support the access of young people to culture and art. This programme is designated for pupils and teachers of elementary and secondary schools. Cultural vouchers subsidized by the state enable admission to theatres, museums, galleries, libraries and other cultural institutions that conduct cultural events for children and youth.
The main objective of this measure in the area of institutional promotion is to create an open democratic platform enabling access to culture for all interested parties. The objectives of the Cultural Vouchers subsidy programme is to promote the relationship of children, youth and their teachers to cultural values, to mobilize the participation of cultural institutions in the education and upbringing of youth, to promote competition among cultural institutions with the aim to enhance the quality of their activities, to promote the fact that state subsidies provided to cultural institutions are directed properly and clearly, based on the real interest of citizens in their services, to create a survey of the interest of children and youth in culture and to monitor the attendance of cultural institutions by this age category.
In the area of institutional promotion, the measure was introduced through organizations within the promoter’s competence of the Ministry. The Cultural Vouchers subsidy programme is part of the Ministry’s subsidy system. In 2008, a total of 53,562,000 SKK were provided for cultural vouchers; in 2009, a total of 2,391,510 € was provided; in 2010, a total of 2,760,669 € was provided and in 2011, a total of 3,083,846 €. The sum of 2,860,000 € is budgeted for this programme for 2012.
Designing material whose aim was to map the current forms of provision of discounts and advantageous admission fees for cultural events aiming at enhancing the accessibility of culture was a challenge in the area of cultural rights and promoting access to culture. This material was elaborated by the Ministry in 2011.
Organizations within the promoter’s competence of the Ministry continuously evaluate the impacts of the introduced measure. Representative examples were selected with a special consideration of the cultural rights of young people.
In the area of financial support, the Ministry also contributes to the events aimed at supporting the access of marginalized groups to culture, such as events for migrant children, children from orphanages and young people with mental disorders. The Ministry contributed to eliminating barriers in accessibility of culture and deepening the cultural rights for marginalized Roma communities by supporting events in the area of culture, education, amateur leisure time activities aimed at the development and awareness of spiritual, cultural and ethical values and their significance in life and motivating positive thinking and involvement in the process of creating cultural values.