No. 3 June. Newsletter Welcome HomeLess
Welcome to the New Welcome HomeLess 
First of all the team behind Welcome HomeLess will like to invite you to check out our new website www.welcomehomeless.org. After a long period of time, spent on waiting and waiting, we are now on-line. With this new platform, we will make sure that you can stop by once in a while to check up on information about the exhibition.
The website will present you with news, facts and up-dates, and you will be able to follow the construction of the new sculptures with pictures. Another new thing is this e-mail based newsletter. We will keep you up-dated about the Welcome HomeLess touring exhibition with these new electronic newsletters, and since this version has made it even easier to keep you up-dated, we will make sure that you receive one every month.
However, with the new website just being up and running now, bear with us for the time being, because it is not fully updated. But we will definitely do our best to make the site interesting and full of new information about the exhibition.
A new beginning
The pan-European touring exhibition Welcome HomeLess has changed.
Right now we are presenting to you a new version and a changed concept.
As you all probably know most of Europe has been knocked out during the last six months because of the financial crisis. This has influenced the way potential sponsors think and act, and it has not been possible to find the economic support that we need to make the touring exhibition as large and powerful as we wanted it to be.
But we are not quitters.
Since there is only six months till the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion begins, we have chosen to change the concept and make a new and improved Welcome HomeLess. The exhibition now consists of 13 sculptures, and instead of being a partner in Welcome HomeLess, the sculptor Jens Galschiøt is now letting us the sculptures. This does not mean that he is not a part of the project any more, but we have invited him to contribute to the exhibition with his art, so that the costs of making the sculptures do not take hold of a large chunk of the budget.
Welcome HomeLess will instead let the sculptures from Jens Galschiøt, and depending on how much sponsoring we can get for the exhibition, the number of sculptures might expand. This also means that you will get all 13 sculptures to your capital city for three weeks, before the sculptures move on to the next country. As you can see, the touring plan will continue as planned, but with a few changes.
We will of course keep you up-dated on this.
We are still positive about the touring aspect, and we will spend the months to come trying to find the financial support for the travelling part of the exhibition. The debates and the informational perspective are also still important for Welcome HomeLess and an important part of why we are making the exhibition. So no matter what, we want the debate about homelessness in Europe to travel through Europe in 2010.
The important EU funding
Because of the difficulties for the time being in getting sponsors for the exhibition, we have chosen to make an effort in getting some of the EU funding for activities in relation to the EU Year 2010.
This means that we need to centre a part of the exhibition in Denmark. Because of this, we are now working on a strategy, which places a pre-opening of Welcome HomeLess in Copenhagen, Denmark. After the pre-opening the 13 sculptures will tour through three other large cities in Denmark; Odense, Aarhus and Aalborg.
After this we will launch the exhibition in Brussels, and we are still trying to get permission to exhibit the sculptures in or around the European Parliament. The launch in Brussels will still function as a statement of homelessness being a Europe-wide problem that we need to place into focus. After the launch the sculptures will begin their travelling around Europe as planned.
We have also chosen not to make you all sign up for good as partners in Welcome HomeLess, since we are not yet sure how the exhibition will turn out. But we will keep you informed about this too.
As you can see, the project has been divided into three parts, and we will continue our search for funding, so that all three parts can be executed as planned.
You can read more about the planning of the exhibition at the Welcome HomeLess website.
Short News:
The EP election
The election for the European Parliament was carried out in Denmark June 7th, and luckily many of the Danish political supporters of Welcome HomeLess was re-elected.
We have up-dated the declaration of support on the website, so that you can see the former and current MEPs who support the exhibition and the necessary debate about homelessness in Europe.
Ended partnership
The partnership that Welcome HomeLess had with the advertising company TBWA\ has now ended.
It was not possible for the company to deliver the promised website, and the delay was causing us too much trouble.
Without a functional website it was even harder to contact potential sponsors.
But we ended our partnership on good terms, and we are now able to move on with a nice and efficient website.
Homeless sculptures in King's Garden
Two of the sculptures of homeless people were exhibited for the first time Saturday June 13th in King’s Garden in Odense, Denmark.
Welcome HomeLess was present with flyers and posters at the annual event Brugernes Bazar (Users' Bazaar). The event is an initiative in Odense, where all the NGOs within the field of homelessness are present, and spent a day talking to each other and the people passing though King’s Garden. Many government officers from the Ministry of the Interior and Social Affairs were also present during the day and stopped by many of the stands for a chat and information.
Read more about the event on the website.
Enjoy the summer and kind regards,
The team behind Welcome HomeLess
You are always more that welcome to contact us at: welcome@udenfor.dk
