The Ecuadorian Ministry of Culture will launch a story and cartoon contest to "recover memory" and prevent the forgetting of the financial crisis of 1999, which forced the closure of several banks and others to be overtaken by the state, which affected thousands of people.
The contest " Memorias de un atraco: feriado bancario " (“Memories of a robbery: the bank holiday’), will officially open on 25 September, and seeks to use "visual art, word art, allegories" to express what was "traumatic" in the history of the country, said Minister of Culture, Erika Sylva, in a meeting with the press.
The aim, she said, is "to recover the memory of an event that was traumatic, that changed history. We are a country that has forgotten more than remembered."
The project, under the program of Memoriales Públicos de Conciencia(“Public Memorials of Conscience”), includes public lectures, presentation of documentaries, exhibitions and the production of a film to be released in 2013, Sylva explained.
According to the Ecuadorian Minister of Finance, Patricio Rivera, these actions will allow the public to have a greater level of analysis of what is happening in society.
In a press conference, Rivera stressed the importance of the competition for "whoever does not analyze the story and what happened, is doomed to repeat it", which, he said, has already occurred in the country.
Rivera recalled that the 1999 financial crisis, which led to the dollarizationof the economy of this Andean nation, marked a wave of migration of Ecuadorians who sought a better life abroad, especially in Europe and the United States.
"The banking crisis of the 90 cost the country about 7,000 million dollars when the economy had a size of nearly 17,000 million," said Rivera while referring to what was called a "bank bailout" and "worst heist in history the country.
Moreover, Sylva reported that the next the II Festival of contemporary music to be held from 24 to 29 September in Quito, Guayaquil, Cuenca and Loja, will have 400 different musicians on stage.
She said her ministry is developing public policy in music to disseminate all genres of music
Sylva said it is essential to educate the public and new generations of all possible trends that exist in music.
"We must educate, generate new audiences, visualize our musical talents, our academic composers," the minister said.