LKCA – The Netherlands

Amateo member:
LANDELIJK KENNISINSTITUUT CULTUUREDUCATIE EN AMATEURKUNST (LKCA)

Member country: The Netherlands
Contact person: Piet Roorda, senior cultural participation officer

Who?
LKCA is the National Centre of Expertise for Cultural Education and Amateur Arts in the Netherlands, based in Utrecht. LKCA is for everyone who is committed to education and participation in culture and the arts, both within the education system and beyond. Anyone working in or involved with these sectors can benefit from the expertise and opportunities for active knowledge exchange that LKCA offers.

Aim
Our aim is to help a wide range of people, including art teachers, internal culture coordinators and coaches, education officers within cultural institutions, policy officers, politicians, researchers, school managers, and administrators in the education sector and in umbrella organisations for the amateur arts. Volunteers working in areas such as the amateur arts can also consult LKCA for information.

Funding
LKCA is part of the Dutch Cultural System and receives funding from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science for its nationwide support of the education and amateur arts sectors.

What?
LKCA is committed to:

• facilitating high-quality, active cultural education, both inside and outside school
• encouraging active cultural participation that is available and accessible to all
• increasing support for cultural education and participation
• connecting cultural education and active cultural participation with society as a whole.

Meeting fellow professionals through LKCA
LKCA regularly organises conferences and network meetings on specific topics and brings professionals, policy makers and administrators into contact with each other. These meetings are publicised through a number of channels, most notably the events calendar and the LKCA newsletter.

Knowledge and knowledge exchange: website, publications, social media
The LKCA website provides independent information on cultural education and participation in the broadest sense of the term. This includes the latest news from the sector and reliable information on a wide range of issues relating to cultural education and participation. On the LKCA website there are various platforms for sharing your knowledge with other visitors.

Research
LKCA conducts independent research on developments in cultural education and participation. The institute can undertake this research on behalf of all decision-makers in this field. We help shape political and public opinion by providing stakeholders with information, both unsolicited and on request.

Partners
As a national organisation LKCA works together with a lot of partners. Among others, LKCA works with the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Cultural Participation Fund, the Association of Netherlands Municipalities, the Council of Twelve and its members, and umbrella organisations in the amateur arts sector.

Why join Amateo?
LKCA is active in a lot of international organisations and networks and supports Amateo from the beginning. We find this important because international collaboration contributes to mutual exchange and to learning from each other. By sharing research, practices and experiences we strengthen cultural participation in our own country as well as on an European level. Making visible facts and values of cultural participation to policy makers and governments we think is also an important aspect of the work from Amateo, as it is from LKCA in the Netherlands. For that LKCA is both active in the board and in the ATP program.

Future hopes?
We hope that the Amateo network will grow. More sharing and exchange and more working together can enlarge the impact of our work for participants, professionals and for the policy level. Our hope is too that the support of cultural participation and education on a European, national and other levels will grow in the future and keep (or get) a solid base.

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More information: https://www.lkca.nl/lkca-english/about-lkca
Piet Roorda is working at LKCA as a senior cultural participation officer and as a team coach.