Special Support Program Aims to Promote Communities Preserving Traditions

MTI-Hungary Today 2024.09.23.

This year the Ministry of Culture and Innovation will again support the Csoóri Sándor Program with HUF 2.5 billion (EUR 6.3 million), which will be available to 1,776 winning applicants this year, Balázs Hankó announced on Friday in Budapest, at the Hungarian Heritage House.

The Minister for Culture and Innovation stressed that the almost 2,000 grants will be used to reach more than 600 foreign regions to further strengthen Hungarian identity.

Among the winners, over 700 folk dance ensembles, over 300 dance houses and 250 other folk music programs have received support.

A total of 2,101 applications were received for this year’s call for proposals. Folk dance was the most popular category again this year, and there was also considerable interest in the categories of support for the professional activities of communities of folk artists.

Fact

In 2017, the government launched the Csoóri Sándor Program, one of the most significant forms of support for folk culture in the last decade. The aim of the program is to promote the transfer of knowledge and develop the professional work of Hungarian folk dance and folk music ensembles, folk dance groups and communities of folk artists, both Hungarian and national and cross-border, and to strengthen these communities, thus preserving Hungarian values and traditions. Therefore, it aims to support organizations and communities active in the field of folk culture and community-building activities.

Miklós Both, Director General of the Hungarian Heritage House emphasized that the communities created or growing through the Csoóri Sándor Program support each other not only in preserving traditions, but also in everyday life, thus creating real, living communities. The role of the Hungarian Heritage House in this system is to try to bring together the countries, NGOs and associations at regional and county level participating in the program and to support them by sharing knowledge, he explained.

The awarded grants can be used until June 30, 2025 to support the professional work of workshops in Hungary and abroad, to finance dance workshops, folk craft programs, dance ensembles, folk music groups and folk singing groups for their annual activities.

The grants awarded under the program may be used by the organizations for the production of folk costumes, the services of live folk music ensembles, professional teaching costs and the purchase of small technical and other equipment directly supporting their work.

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Via MTI, Featured image: MTI/Soós Lajos