| [ History ] |
Culture Club Latting was started in 1988 by a few culture interested friends in Gävle. The Society`s purpose was to widen the selection of cultural events and activities within the City of Gävles boundaries. Through training-courses, gallery exhibtions, cultural meeting places and music clubs. The main idea is to let more people take part in cultural activities and that`s the reason why the Gallery was started in Café atmosphere, the Music club arranges jazz and folkmusic in Pub atmosphere to attract new fresh audience. Our education department offers a wide selection of study-circles from literature to African drums.
With the co-operation of organizations " Studiefrämjandet" and " Kulturförvaltningen" in Gävle had the project and organization Society Club Latting grown with a following of 500 members . The enterprise was managed on idealistic basis with a 30 odd active members who took turns evenings and weekends to run the Cafe`, Music club and the Study groups , which from day one were aimedat the general public. |
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[The Cultural project Lätting is born]
The Culture Club Society Latting`s premises were empty during the daytime and that made possible the forming of the project. The Unemployment Centre in the community of the City of Gävle made funds availible to engage an instructor for 8 months - and the project was begun. 16 unemployed young people took part during this time, and after an evaluation of the results funds were granted another employee, and teacher theoretical subjects. The young students could now study parttime. The unemployment agency began also to give finacial aid, and then our most important Co-partner.
The theory behind the project seemed to be working practically, and a large majority of the young people were able to carry on with their studies or luckily even get a job. In 1993 the organization increased its size by request from the unemployment office, which made Lättings into a Culture House Activity with over 80 participant between the age of 16 - 65. The fundemental idea for this huge project was based upon the Culture House in Stockholm, that allows children to try different activities in order to raise interest for culture and technique. The important thing was that the project would fulfil a purpose for the public and that we concentrated on activities for children. Departments were then created, such as: Theatre, Photo, Music workshop, Computer Fun, Fairytale room, movies and more..
During 1993 the participants in the organization increased to 130. This led to full time commitment from the participants to take part in the projects activities for children. The numbers of supervisors now increased into 7, who were responisble for the different areas of activities. During that year the project was visited by around 10 000 children and a couple of hundred study visits. Since 1993, around 2 500 people have taken part in the projects activities full time. Parallel to the culture project was that the culture activities in the organization continued during the nights and during the hollidays.
When the project started it was decided that 2 divisions would be seperated under different organisations. The society is still the principle steering organisation responsible for the project. Nobody knew how vigorous the project would become, the society had it`s idealistic ground to stand on. The project leaders were employed by the society and later instuctors were employed and they were accountable to the City council and the Employment exchange as regards evaluation, follow up and reports. The society`s economy was never mixed with the culture project. This has been a successful formula through the years. Different projects are suited to specified subject groups. |
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[ New co-partners are added, and more projects.. ] Duriing 1994-95 a new project was started with support of The Youth Comittee ”Ungdomsstyrelsen”. The Culture Club Latting received support to become an idea and development centre for youth activities. The organisation gained national recognition and international study groups became more common. The co-operation between an idealistic organisation, government and community was also unusual and many people wanted inspiration and tips about how it work. During these years a co-operation was introduced with induvidual advanced students (Gymnasie-skolans individuella program) and we started receiving more young people who because of different reasons didn`t finish the usual education system. This co-operation continued and we have 15 positions available for students from the individual programme.
We launched also a 3 year project in co-operation with The city of Gävle library, where two librarians worked half time within the culture project Lättings to inrich and to be inriched. The project was supported by The State Culture Council. During these years a tradition was also started to arrange a childrens festival every year in co-operation with ”Kultur” Gävle.
Later this became a part of the national day festivities in Gävle. The childrens activities were developed quickly, and Lättings theatre group appeared in both schools and in own localities for children in all ages. Childrens dance became an appreciated activity for daycare and youth recreation centres, and approx. fifty children attended dancing classes in our locality. In 1995 co-operation was introduced with the primary school board, when we started a recreation centre for children age groups 9-12 years. Approx. 20 children took part in an activity after school. This co-operation continued to the end 1999, when the operation was moved to the schools own locality.
Involvement in culture activities for children culminated, year 2000, in a project against foreigner condemnation, racism and for integration, with the support of The Swedish State Inheritance Fund have for 3 years constrived to find tools to use in conjunction with these questions with children. Several hundred children have taken part in the project this past year and will be represented in an handbook for schools and daycare centres. In 1999 we completed a ”Mål 3” project with the support of The European Social Fund aimed at working to preserve old traditional techniques within sheetmetal working and blacksmithing. The division with handicrafts will be further developed. In 2001-02 a theatre project was completed with Swedish and Romance youths with the support of The Intregation Department and ”Kultur” Gävle, aimed at improving the situation for Romance students.
Parallel to all projects the society`s evening activities were continued and every year we completed aprox. 50 study groups in different areas. The Gallery division, where local artists are invited to submit paintings or other artwork to be exibited in cafe` atmosphere, has been consistently sucessful. Unfortunately this is on hold at the moment.
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[ The Activity becomes International ]
Since 1996 we have recieved over 30 foreign volounteers from France, Portugal, Greece, Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Lithuania and Great Britain (Several of them were in Gävle during the great snow storm of 1998). The volounteers activity increased the interest for language amongst the locals here at home, and it reduced foreign hostility and gained intress to try the possibilities out in Europe. The importance was bigger than we expected at first and this part of our activity increases continuously. Later on we arranged youth exchange, were groups of young people got together to exchange experiences and meet new cultures.
We also started our first Youthstart Project for youths during 1996. It was a transnational project within Employment, European Socialfund. Together with partners from Great Britain, France, Portugal and Germany we began a 2 year project with an International objective. Youths from the individual programme participated and we carried out numbers of journeys. The purpose was to find different methods to work with youths with social problems.
In 1998 we started a new Youthstart project were the youths themselves would be responsible to inform other youths. We had the advantage to continue our collaboration with the same partners and the project was a sucess. These International experiences has characterized our entire activity and this part is continually developing. We have participated in youth exchanges with Romania, Spain, Portugal and Germany. And we have also organized exchanges here in Gävle with participants from other countries.
This last year we've become one of the few "European offices" in Sweden, which means we have acess to a data base containing all conceivable informations about International possibilities. We are included in a national and European network with organizations that works with volounteers and youth exchange. Nationwide we work as an information centre regarding this activity, and we have a very near collaboration with the Youth committe, which is the responsible authority for the EU program "Youth".
In 2002, SIDA started a project with the possibility to seek for exchange with both adults and youths. Through that we carried out an exchange project with Vietnam and Mexico. In 2002 began a co-operation between The community federation and their corresponding authority in Estland. |
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[ The national organisation continues.. ]
We begin with start 2004 a Handicraft project (Hantverksproject), with the support of The European Social Fund, Mål 3 and
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