Interreg Baltic Sea Region | BSR Cultural Pearls

BSR Cultural Pearls makes smaller cities and regions increase their social resilience with local assets in an innovative way. The project tackles challenges from authorities (responsible departments e.g. for social services, economy, tourism, culture) in places which are more vulnerable, non-central and prone to decreasing quality of life. While their role should be to halt a downward spiral, they often lack capacity, innovative solutions and instruments to do so.

These tools would be used e.g. to increase engagement of civil society and build social cohesion through connectedness and shared values, to spur creative processes with different actors of the local ecosystem, or to link them to national and international channels for inspiration and visibility.

To overcome these barriers, the partnership develops a Cultural and social resilience uptake programme with three key elements: 1st, to make authorities develop a “culture and resilience action plan”. 2nd, to support authorities in the implementation of these action plans with a “peer-mentoring /co-learning programme”. 3rd, to showcase selected cities and regions as “BSR Cultural Pearls” with BSR-wide communication activities. This leads to places in which citizens and stakeholders have a stronger sense of belonging to society, feel engaged and act for the common good. This way, the community is more attractive and stronger prepared to respond to external disturbances. Such a city or region can be defined as more resilient.

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BSR Cultural Pearls title awarding ceremonies will be organized in every Pearl ‘s city to create a momentum for local communities, uniting people and building a common understanding of how important it is to be strong all together and ready for the unknown challenges that might come. The local ceremony can be organized in conjunction with an existing event, such as an annual city festival, or as a stand-alone event. In addition to that, an international hybrid ceremony will take place at the end of the title year, celebrating the achievements of the Pearls during their title year, and announcing the forthcoming Pearls.

By becoming a “Pearl” you gain national and Baltic Sea Region wide visibility. From the moment of the announcement and during the whole program you are in the spotlight – with the support of the local partners all the working phases are captured in photos, videos, stories are shared as part of a larger communication campaign.