euskalkultura.eus

Donostia-San Sebastian.  “The truth is that it is a nice surprise when they called to tell us that our website had been nominated by the public, and that we made it to the second round (and third) and that we were finalists for the award,” the director pointed out last year, and now repeats the same words having been nominated for the Buber Award, major Basque award in the internet industry that is presented by the Internet Association and Euskadi in this its 11th edition.

Regarding EuskalKultura.com, Etxarri reiterates his words from last year: “We are constantly updating the page, we send a daily newsletter and we work in Basque as well as Spanish and English, that implies that we don’t have a lot of time for socializing or public relations: we are hostage to the website and in a work like this, recognition doesn’t come often, so there is no doubt that if the goal of these awards in this case is to encourage, recognize, support and put black on white the existence and the important activity and contribution that the Basque Diaspora in different places in the world is paying to our common Basque heritage and Basque culture (…) sure the award is welcome, of course.”

Critical situation: close or serious cuts to the bulletin

But EuskalKultura.com’s director continued. “This news has come at a very difficult economic time for us.  Our finances have always been difficult, but our natural vocation to the project, non-commercial and committed to the Diaspora and Basque culture allowed us to weather the economic storm, one way or another, until now.  But the reduction or elimination of economic support that we have suffered specially during these last two years have brought us to a moment where we are having to make drastic decisions, that in the best case scenario would include a significant reduction in our production, including maybe eliminating our English edition, and in the worst case scenario closing EuskalKultura.com completely.  This is not at all something we want to do. We will let you know more about this this week”, he said.

-2013 Buber Award website, here