Description
According to research, members of non-traditional religious communities (minorities) in Lithuania often face intolerance and discrimination from the society. Religious minorities are often stigmatized and labelled as "sects" and are not welcomed to participate in public life of society. Project aims at promotion of democratic values and human rights in the field of religion by establishing partnership between NGOs and media for raising of public awareness of religious diversity. This will be achieved by organizing partnership development seminars for journalists on religious diversity in Lithuania, holding contests of the best journalistic articles and photos reflecting religious diversity, publishing e.book about religious diversity in Lithuania based on articles and photos of the contests and preparing and delivering photo exhibition on religious diversity to 10 cities in Lithuania. Project promoter will also strengthen its organizational capacity by extending ties with media. Target groups: media/journalists, NGOs, civil society. Beneficiaries: people belonging to non-traditional religious minorities in Lithuania, civil society.
Summary of project results
According to data of various researches, members of non-traditional religious communities in Lithuania often face intolerance and discrimination from the society. Religious minorities are often labelled as "sects", they are not allowed to participate in public life of society. In order to solve the problem of religious discrimination in Lithuania and to challenge the widely spread notion that Lithuania is a homogenous Roman Catholic country, it was needed to draw public attention to the religious diversity of this society and human rights of members of religious communities by establishing partnership between NGO and media. Activities, based on this partnership, created opportunities to increase public awareness on human rights such as freedom of religion. Furthermore, the project has achieved additional outcome and outputs. In order to strengthen the civil society more volunteers have joined project activities, thus project was aimed at a wider public awareness of religious diversity and the right of religious freedom in Lithuania. The aim of the project was to promote democratic values and human rights in the field of religion, to disseminate information about religious diversity in Lithuania by cooperation of media and NGO. Project promoter has completed the following tasks and activities: 1) partnership development seminars for journalists on religious diversity in Lithuania organized; 2) Contests of the best journalistic articles and photos reflecting religious diversity in Lithuania held; 3) E.book about religious diversity in Lithuania based on articles and photos of the contests published; 4) exhibition of photo on religious diversity set up and delivered to 10 cities in different regions of Lithuania; 5) society was informed about democratic values, religious diversity and freedom of religion. In addition few more indicators were achieved: - Increased citizen involvement in civil actions, organized by the NGOs (11 events); - increased number of individuals who regularly volunteer at NGOs (2 volunteers); This project has produced a number of various publicity items (photos, articles, e.book) that shall serve as the means of ensuring sustainability of the project results and impact being effective and notable far beyond the completion of the project. Project promoter will also be able to capitalize on these results when implementing future activities and projects, as the results were very well accepted by the society and media.
Summary of bilateral results