User:Giuliasantelli/Juminkeko Foundation

Juminkeko Foundation (or simply Juminkeko) runs the Kalevala and Karelian Culture Information Centre located in Kuhmo (Finland). The centre was designed by the Finnish architects Mikko Heikkinen and Markku Komonen.

Activities
The Foundation aims at preserving the Kalevala cultural heritage and promoting cultural exchanges between Finland and the Republic of Karelia. The Foundation organizes exhibitions and other events in Kuhmo and in other parts of Finland and the Republic of Karelia. Juminkeko’s activity also includes the publishing, the collection and filing of traditional material and the intervention for the revitalization of the so-called poetic villages of Viena, famous for the runosinging tradition. Juminkeko operates also as national cultural centre for children in the field of folk tradition.

Juminkeko Foundation organizes research trips to the Republic of Karelia with folklorists. Its partners are the SKS (Finnish Literature Society) archive of folk poetry, the Kalevala Society (Kalevalaseura) and the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Karelian Scientific Centre which belongs to the Russian Academy of Sciences.

For its core activities, the Foundation is supported by the Minister of Education and Culture. The support for other activities comes from several projects such as EU-projects, cooperation projects within neighbouring areas, projects founded by the Finnish Cultural Fund, etc.

Revitalization of the poetic villages of Viena
Since 1990, Juminkeko Foundation has been cooperating with the Karelian Foundation Arhippa Perttunen for the revitalization of the poetic villages of Viena.

This 30-year project aims at preserving the threatened Viena culture. In 1993, the project for the revitalization of the poetic villages of Viena was recognized by UNESCO as part of the World Decade for the Cultural Development.

From 1996 until 2001, Juminkeko successfully petitioned the World Monuments Watch to have Panozero village included in the list of the hundred most threatened cultural sites in the world. In 2005, Panozero received the medal Europa Nostra which is the highest European prize in the preservation of cultural heritage.