On 4 August, a massive explosion has devastated the city of Beirut, causing the death of some 150 people and 5000 wounded, destroying thousands of houses and public spaces, among which cultural venues.   

In response to the devastation, the European Festivals Association and its members want to collect funds for the arts and culture sector in order to support the cultural actors and artists in Lebanon. 

Culture is what makes us human and is a fundamental human right. Because participating in cultural activities is a motor of emancipation and liberation. Arts bring us joy and beauty. The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated how much arts and culture are important in our lives, to feed our spirit, to fill our hearts.  

Too often left behind, we want to show our solidarity with a sector that is impressively creative and is home to many talented, internationally recognized artists, but that has been suffering from a lack of funding since years. 

If you would also like to contribute to the rebuilding of the sector in Lebanon, we invite you to make a donation to Al Bustan International Festival. Al Bustan Festival is EFA’s longstanding member in Lebanon and our local trust worthy partner to gather and disseminate the funds among a couple of initiative and artists in need. For example, we could support Al Bustan Festival in organising a charity concert featuring Khaled Mouzannar and the Lebanese Symphonic Orchestra too. We will keep you informed about this initiative in the following weeks. Thanks to Al Bustan we are sure your donation is between safe hands and that your donation will really make a difference: a donation of 30 € in Europe counts as 300 € in Lebanon because of the huge economical crisis and the inflation the country is living for some years already. 

DONATIONS

Al Bustan International Festival
IBAN (International Bank Account Number): FR76 1808 9000 0107 2661 1000 502
BIC (Bank Identifier Code): AUDIFRPPXXX
Communication: donation Lebanon

We also extend a call for collaboration and invite all festivals that are running an action or wish to do so to get in touch with us. We are willing to put you in contact with other festivals to maybe organise an international action. Also if you have specific equipment or material to give away or if you propose grants for Lebanese artists to work in other countries, we can count on Al Bustan to disseminate the information around their network.  

We feel a real wave of solidarity here in Europe, so let's do something altogether to support the Lebanese!