Solidarity with Ukraine
With freedom, democracy and equality at the core of who the Europeana Initiative is and what we do, we expressed our unequivocal solidarity with the people of Ukraine in a joint statement, last February. Since then, we’ve been actively supporting several of the actions across Europe within our sector, including SUCHO and SUM (4CH).
Now, we want to take our active support one step further. To this end, the Europeana Initiative has established a Working Group which is open to anyone who would like to volunteer their efforts to support Ukraine’s cultural heritage sector and our Ukrainian colleagues.
As a wide and deeply interconnected European network of culture professionals, supporters and enthusiasts, the Europeana Initiative has significant experience, expertise and knowledge when it comes to working with digital heritage collections. We stand united in our duty of care and our commitment to manage that heritage as diligently as possible and we share the same values as European citizens.
About the Working Group
The responsibilities and actions of this Working Group will be to:
keep track of ongoing activities within the sector and make recommendations to the Europeana Initiative leadership on which ones are most relevant to follow and support;
reach out to and investigate synergies with other (grassroots) initiatives;
coordinate or carry out activities with a hands-on approach;
communicate about its activities.
Activities could include:
data archiving and preservation;
documenting and digitising Ukrainian heritage;
curating via editorials (co-)created by network members and Ukrainian curators;
organising collection days (oral history, photographic materials);
delivering capacity building activities (training in digitisation, metadata, standards and best practices);
proving an aggregation route towards Europeana.
Join us
The Working Group was formally established at the most recent Europeana Aggregators’ Forum and is now looking for members eager to contribute. We invite you to step forward and express your interest in joining the Working Group by 10 May 2022. We particularly welcome members with a close or direct connection with Ukrainian heritage institutions, as a grassroots approach is essential to this effort.
Ukraine is experiencing an intense ongoing humanitarian and cultural crisis. Our action is urgently needed, so don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to be a part of this effort.