Dear Colleagues, Friends, and International and Regional Partners:
We end 2015 in the hopes that we have done our utmost in achieving our goals, including supporting creativity and culture in the Arab region, defending freedom of expression, and supporting local cultural organizations to reach their potentials. We do not want to end the year reflecting deeply on the great obstacles and challenges ahead of us in the region, but want to move into the new year with attentive regard towards our ever-changing role and our proactive engagement in light of the events and changes taking place around us.
Despite all the difficulties faced by artists and entrepreneurs alike, we find, still, opportunities to rejoice. In our last message of the year, we both celebrate and share with you the new additions and changes to the Culture Resource family in 2015.
As many of you know, we announced in July that our Cairo office closed down and that we have moved our regional office to Beirut. With this new location, we happily welcome the new staff members in Beirut and wish them the best as they carry on Culture Resource’s long tradition of programs and services.
We congratulate former staff members of Culture Resource, who have moved on to develop and manage programs for the new, independently established company, the Geneina Company, which has taken over the administration of the Geneina Theatre and Al Darb Al Ahmar School. We are happy for them and wish them luck as they explore new endeavors.
We celebrate the success of Action for Hope, an initiative that was incubated within Culture Resource and aims to support and empower distressed communities suffering from war, displacement, violent political turmoil, or difficult living conditions, through providing them with tools for expression, learning, healing, creativity and communication. Under the leadership of Culture Resource’s former director, Basma El Husseiny, Action for Hope has moved on to become an independent project.
This year also marks the first time Culture Resource has collaborated with an Arab Ministry of Culture. Tunisia Balad El Fann represents a fruitful partnership with Tunisia’s Ministry of Culture and illustrates the potential for positive impact that can be achieved from a relationship between an independent cultural institution and a government institution with a progressive view of the role of culture.
We thank our donors and supporters for their continued backing of our work. It is with your encouragement, aid, and belief in what we do that we continue moving forward towards new ideas and challenges.
We proudly rejoice the accomplishments of all the artists and cultural managers who have trusted in our programs and services. The work and products you have created not only affirm the need for developing an independent culture sector, but, as well, continuously emphasize that we have no other choice but to think beyond barriers and obstacles.
As we end 2015 and look forward to 2016, we are excitedly improving on long-standing services and developing new programs in response to the increasing obstacles and changing environments. Some of these include:
– New programs for travel and artist support;
– Improvements to and expansions of previous programs, like Abbara and our new M.A. program in Cultural Management;
– An expanding list of Culture Resource events;
– And, the 7th edition of our Spring Festival which will take place this year in THREE location in the Arab region.
We look forward to sharing with you all our news, especially the new programs for 2016, in January. Until then, we thank you all for your ongoing support for our work. We wish all of you a happy and successful 2016!
Rana Yazaji
Director
Culture Resource
