EU Multilateral Christmas Charity Gala 2023 - #EU4UKRAINE
To continue our successful cultural/public diplomacy outreach campaigns with the EU Multilateral Christmas Gala, the EU Delegation in Vienna continues to emphasize the importance of European Unity and Solidarity. The concept of our cultural diplomatic events highlights the unity, cultural diversity, and multilingualism of the EU and emphases the importance of multilateralism, diversity, and solidarity on the international level.
Our campaigns aim at showing the EU’s efforts in strengthening multilateralism through cooperation with the international organisations in Vienna as well as to highlight the role of Vienna as one of the world capitals of multilateralism.
In 2022, the overall outreach work of the Delegation changed following the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine. All communication and activities became mostly focused on the situation in Ukraine and more specifically on youth as 2022 was also the European Year of Youth.
In collaboration with the diplomatic missions of Ukraine in Vienna, our Gala became, for the first time, a charity event in support of the youth suffering due to the war. The EU Multilateral Christmas Charity Gala - #EU4UKRAINE was renamed and continued to be organised based on the same concept as the previous years, to show solidarity, unity, diversity and harmony of the European Union. The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, Kalush Orchestra was one of the many performances in the 2-day event. Over 600 people attended the gala and had a reach of over 200.000 on social media.
The EU Multilateral Christmas Charity Gala 2022 was a big cultural diplomacy and visibility success. We made it possible for the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the International Organisations in Vienna to purchase and install 12 virtual classrooms for schools in Irpin and ship 500 tablets for students in Nikopol and other cities around Ukraine. A total value of 250.000 € was collected by the Ukrainian Mission with donations/ticket sales and especially with the donations of the tablets.
As 2023 is the European Year of Skills and keeping in mind the EU focus in Ukraine on the future and preserving the skills and cultural heritage, we agreed with the Ukrainian mission to see how we can preserve the cultural heritage and especially the skill of playing music and music education.
As the involvement of youth in our cultural diplomatic events remains one of the main elements in the organisational process, we have invited again young artists to perform at the Christmas Gala to give them the opportunity to participate in public diplomacy. The artists will be from different genres to underline the importance of cultural diversity and multilingualism.
The event will be the combination of different genres of music and dance performances, highlighting multilateralism as well as multilingualism, and aims to visualise the different continents and the diverse range of cultures and societies all over the globe. Through the artistic performances by artists from different countries, solidarity, multilingualism, and cultural diversity will be shown and promoted.
For this year’s Gala, all proceeds from ticket sales as well as voluntary donations will be used to purchase a grand piano and an orchestral drum kit for the Kharkiv I. P. Kotlyarevsky National University of Arts in Kharkiv.
Kharkiv I. P. Kotlyarevsky National University of Arts is one of the leading higher education institutions in Ukraine, a creative, research and methodological center of music and theater education located in the eastern part of Ukraine.
The university is a member of the European Association of Conservatories, the European University Association, and the European League of Arts Universities.
The Russian full-scale war against Ukraine significantly affected the work of the University as its building was partially destroyed by Russian missile, the staff evacuated, the musical fond damaged.
Nevertheless, the University managed to adapt to new living realities, started to perform all types of educational activities online, ensured the quality of education and high admission rates.
Meanwhile, the lack of professional and high-quality musical instruments damaged as a result of Russian shelling remains among the main challenges for the University.
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