On 31 March 2023, the Integration Foundation will be celebrating its quarter-century anniversary. For this reason, we ask you to share photos of your collaboration with us – the older, the better

The Integration Foundation was created on 31 March 1998 under the name Non-Estonians Integration Foundation. From the spring of 2008 to the end of 2009, the institution was called the Integration Foundation. In 2010, the institution merged with the Estonian Migration Foundation and the combined organisation became the Integration and Migration Foundation Our People (MISA). Since 15 March 2017, the foundation bears the name Integration Foundation again.

Send us any photos of your collaboration with the Integration Foundation – of joint activities, of people who have collaborated with us, and of our shared achievements. With these photos, we hope to preserve a significant part of the history of the foundation as well as of integration.

We ask you to send the photos no later than 20 March via e-mail to press@integratsioon.ee. Please include the following information with the photo files, so we could use the photos in the news channels and publications of the foundation:

• The names of the people or places on the photo and if possible, the story behind it;
• The date and location of the photo;
• The author of the photo;
• Confirmation that the Integration Foundation has permission to publish, archive, and reuse the photo. We always mention the author by name.

The size of the photos: the photos should be at least 1 MB in size, but other scans and reimaged photos are welcome too.

Thank you in advance to those who help preserve a small but important part of our Estonian history.
 

The photo below was taken at a meeting in Võru in 2017, where the topic of family studies was discussed. At the table are the President of the Republic of Estonia Kersti Kaljulaid, Urmo Kübarsepp from the Office of the President, Maivi Liiskmann, Külliki Mattus and Viia Haller - representatives of the families who hosted the young people learning Estonian, Irene Käosaar, the head of the Integration Foundation, and Jana Tondi, the head of language learning activities in the foundation. Photo by Viktor Burkivski.

On 9 January, the Integration Foundation opened an application round to support the organisation of Ukrainian-language cultural events for young Ukrainian war refugees in cooperation with Ukrainian cultural societies, Estonian NGOs, and cultural institutions, as well as the teaching of Ukrainian language and culture and the publication of children’s and youth literature in Ukrainian. Applications can be submitted until 9 February (included). 

‘Estonia offers Ukrainian war refugees free adaptation training and A1-level language learning courses, so that they can adapt quickly in Estonia and cope until they have the opportunity to return to their homeland. With the new measure, we will keep alive the traditions related to the Ukrainian language and cultural heritage of the refugees, so that when they return to their homeland, they have the opportunity to continue their studies or enrol in a university. From the point of view of integration policy, it is important that the recipients of temporary protection preserve their culture and at the same time adapt to the Estonian cultural space,’ said the Minister of Culture Piret Hartman. 

‘The purpose of the grant is to ensure that young Ukrainian war refugees up to the age of 19 in Estonia have opportunities to keep in touch with the Ukrainian language and culture through community activities. Preserving national identity is important both for the adaptation of Ukrainian youth in Estonia and for returning to their homeland,’ said Ave Härsing, Head of Cultural Diversity at the Integration Foundation.

The budget of the application round is 100,000 euros and up to 15,000 euros can be applied for in one application. Each applicant may only submit one application. The deadline for the submission of applications is 9 February 2023.
The applicant can be a legal entity registered in the Republic of Estonia or a self-employed person registered in the commercial register.

Further information about the terms and conditions of the application round can be found on the website of the Integration Foundation.

The application round is funded by the Ministry of Culture.

The application round is based on Regulation No. 21 of 16 December 2022 of the Minister of Culture ‘Conditions and procedure for providing grants to young Ukrainian war refugees up to 19 years of age to preserve the Ukrainian language and culture’.

On December 16th, the most prominent developers in the field of integration were recognised by Ministry of Culture and the Integration Foundation. Those recognised in the field of integration include Jelena Skulskaja, Marju Lauristin, OÜ Shiftworks, the Estonian National Museum, and Anu Luure and Natalja Mjalitsina, who are the driving force behind the Ukrainian school at the Tallinn Lilleküla Secondary School. 

The goal of the awards is to recognise the people who have contributed to the introduction of various cultures that are represented in Estonia; to the creation of contacts between people with various native languages; and to finding a common language among the various communities.

"It is important for our society that the people living here are part of the Estonian cultural space and that there are good relations between people of different nationalities. Russia's aggression in Ukraine opened several wounds of the past and sent a large number of war refugees to Estonia in a short period of time. The task of the field of integration is to solve these challenges, to keep society together and cohesive. I am glad that today we are recognizing people, organizations and ideas, whose activities contribute to a sense of togetherness and a safer and culturally diverse Estonia," said Piret Hartman, the Minister of Culture. 

Award winners were announced in four categories. The winners in each integration category received a reward of €1,000. This year, two prizes were awarded in the category Leading Figure in the Field of Integration. 
 
The award in the Bridgebuilder of the Year was presented to Shiftworks OÜ, directed by Helen Sildna, for organising the Tallinn-Narva Music Week festival in 2022 and the sustainable development of the Station Narva festival. Over the past five years, Shiftworks' activities have contributed to the promotion of a more cohesive society in Narva and Ida-Virumaa, i.e. revitalising cultural life, diversifying the creative economy, improving the living environment of the region and changing its image of the region; emphasising that Narva is an Estonian city and part of our country, and that its eastern border is safe. Watch the video.

The award in the Messenger of the Year category went to the Public Relations Department of the Estonian National Museum, which, in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Social Welfare Board, organised a project to collect stories about helping the Ukrainian war refugees for the museum. In addition, the Estonian National Museum organises year-round courses for new immigrants, war refugees and people who live in Estonia but are not very integrated, whereby they get a first-hand insight into the history and culture of Estonia. Watch the video.

The Spark of the Year award went to Anu Luure and Natalja Mjalitsina for establishing the Ukrainian school at the Tallinn Lilleküla Secondary School. Based on their strong sense of mission, determination, persistence and patience, the school that they have created provides human warmth and a needs-based education to children who have fled the war in Ukraine. Anu Luure and Natalja Mjalitsina have been able to supplement their existing professional skills with new knowledge and, despite the unusual circumstances, have been able to create a “special” school in the good sense. Watch the video.

The Building blocks of integration category was introduced this year, and two winners were declared.

The first award in the Building blocks of integration category went to Jelena Skulskaja, who, for many years, has written about Estonian culture for Russians and introduced Russian culture in the Estonian language. Skulskaja has participated in almost 100 programmes as an Estonian-Russian cultural mediator on Estonian Television, and about 50 programmes on the radio. She has been contributing articles to newspapers since 1997, and been analysing the points of contact between and integration of Estonian and Russian culture. She has also published several books on Estonian-Russian cultural fields. Jelena continues her work on front with the unwavering strength. Watch the video.

The second winner in the Building blocks of integration category is Marju Lauristin, in whose scientific and social activities, the awareness of Estonia’s cultural diversity and long-term work promoting integration have been very important. She has been leader in this field for more than 30 years, taken care of the scientific research and follow-up in the field, and been involved in the field of integration since the 1990s. Marju Lauristin has placed great importance on the topic of integration as it relates to the general cultural and socio-political context, as targets for educational development, in scientific research and in the presentations for various future vision days. Watch the video.

A total of 23 applications were received for the competition of 2021-2022 integration projects. 

Photos from the integration award ceremony are available at: https://photos.app.goo.gl/81BXbjVXStPsJMmr9 (photographer: Sven Tupits) and video at https://youtu.be/MR81f0DnM6A (video: Videal OÜ). 

The Estonian Integration Foundation has been assigning awards for development activities in the field of integration since 1999. The fund for the annual awards in the field of integration for 2021-2022 is financed by the Ministry of Culture.

From November 21st, you can participate in the annual e-quiz of the Integration Foundation. The quiz is dedicated to the Citizen’s Day celebrated on 26 November. The quiz takes place from 21 November to 5 December on the website of the Integration Foundation and it focuses on interesting facts, events, and life in Estonia.

We invite anyone interested to test their knowledge about the topics of social life, statehood, civil rights and civic duties in Estonia. The quiz will definitely expand your knowledge, as you can search the answers from the internet. We are organising the quiz for the twentieth time already. To celebrate the anniversary, we also used the most interesting questions from previous years. Answering them requires creativity, logical thinking, and a sense of humour in addition to knowledge.

The quiz is available in Estonian, English, and Russian on the website of the Integration Foundation. The quiz has 50 questions. You have 60 minutes for completing the quiz. Ten participants with the best results will get a prize from the Integration Foundation in December.

The internet-based Citizen’s Day quiz is organised by the Integration Foundation since 2003, i.e. for the twentieth time this year. The organisation of the Citizen’s Day e-quiz is supported by the Ministry of Culture.

The Integration Foundation organized a conference 'Together or Apart: Searching for the Middle Ground' in Tallinn on 10 & 11 November. The event brought together internationally recognised experts from Finland, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and of course Estonia. 

The day started with a performance by the tandem choir of the Estonian Language House in Narva. The conference was opened by Ambassador Kairat Abdrakhmanov, High Commissioner for National Minorities of the OSCE, and the opening speeches were given by Minister of Culture Piret Hartman and Dmitri Moskovtsev, the Director of the Integration Foundation.

The conference programme included presentations and panel discussions where experts in the field, researchers, policy makers, and representatives of civil society organisations analysed the processes of segregation, its possible dangers, and consequences.

The Ene Hion Foundation announced the recipient of its annual scholarship on stage – Natalja Mjalitsina, the founder of school for Ukrainians on Räägu Street, a branch of the Lilleküla High School, who was also one of the speakers at the conference. Her surprise was big and sincere. Congratulations and thank you for consistently shaping a civil society that takes multiculturalism into account!

The conference ended with a debate between Estonian politicians, where Jürgen Ligi, Maria Jufereva-Skuratovski, Viktoria Ladõnskaja-Kubits, Eduard Odinets, Aleksei Jašin, and Jaak Valge discussed segregation in Estonian education and proposed possible solutions to make the school system more unified. The lively debate was led by ERR journalist Jüri Nikolajev.

You can watch the presentations here,

the photos can be seen here.