Nordic Look: Internal power of art as a tool for change

OLLABORATIVE PROJECTS GRANTED FUNDING IN 2018 by Swedish Institute.

Participating country(s): Sweden, Russia

International partner organisation(s): NGO “Sodeistvie”

1. WebbOn HB as a film maker and its network have strengthened their skills in how to communicate the needs for democratic involvement through new arenas in Sweden and Russia by means of documentary films festival with workshops and discussions and photo exhibitions, open media platforms, a short documentary film. Project partners organised all the events and exhange their experience and raise their skills. Two short documentary films were produced by HB WebbOn during the project. Two international film festivals as well as two international photo exhibitions were conducted during the project. Open media platforms such as project web-site, web-site for target groups and YouTube channel with relative to the project video content were opened.
2. Representatives of the target groups from culture, media and youth organisations are better able to influence decision makers by common experience exchange during study visits to Sweden and Russia and communication in the frames of round table. Project activities were held in Boden (Sweden) and Petrozavodsk (Russia) with cross boundary effect caused by participation of Russian representatives from culture, media, education and youth organisations in events took place in Sweden and Swedish representatives in events took place in Russia.
3. Target groups has strengthened its capacity to effective communication including promotion of democracy, human rights, non-discrimination with focus on people with disabilities during experience exhange in the framework of study visits, documentary film festival and bilateral photo exhibition in Sweden and Russia.
4. The target groups got new skills, working methods and tools during study visits and experience exchange and use of internet as a tool for democracy advocacy, human rights promotion and non-discrimination with focus on people with disabilities.
5. Target groups are able to defend the rights of final beneficiaries by means of new skills during study visits, bilateral documentary film festival, bilateral photo exhibition, producing of leaflet and round table discussions.
6. Target groups are better able to communicate the importance of transparency and public dialogue and the role of mass media in promoting them.

We succeeded to reach all the project indicators.

1. Four films (two from Russia, two from Sweden) including two documentary films by WebbOn in mini film festival with workshops and round table discussions in Russia and Sweden about opinion makers, volunteers, human rights defenders, people with special needs. More than 500 participants from media, culture, youth organisations.
2. Study visit of Russian participants to Sweden (6 persons) and one study visit of Swedish experts to Russia (4 persons). In Saint-Petersburg the Swedish participants visited center “Anton is nearby” and conducted a workshop with 30 participants.
3. One leaflet (200 copies) about project findings, films, partners, study trips. It is disseminated also in Russia and Sweden among journalists of Barents press.
4. One final round table in Russia on project findings dissemination (55 participants from media, culture, social, youth organisations).
5. 5. Bilateral photo exhibitions in Russia and Sweden about democracy, human rights and non-discrimination (550 visitors) 6. Two web-pages on web-sites of Russian and Swedish partners. One YouTube channel about project activities and free video content on the topic of the project. 7. Survey in Sweden and Russia among target groups and final beneficiaries on the project’s results (at least 55 persons). 8. One short documentary film produced during study visit to Sweden about social work there and one documentary film about children with special needs in education was shoot  during the project by WebbOn.