 Cymru i denudiadol am hafwiyth 24 ddylogion desgwysgwysg Bwyd Cllwymiaeth Ac Rhaid, ydw i ni ddweud gan hyn yn 2022. Ac rwy'n ganlŵr, gan bachbwysig ar y Gweinyrd yma, podeul yn fodus i mi. I know Clare would very much have wanted to be here having sponsored the Ukraine cultural leadership dialogue event here in the Parliament in August and which I know many of you in the room are also attended. So agenda item one is links with and support for Ukrainian culture and it is our only agenda item today which is quite unusual for this committee. It is consideration of links with and support for Ukrainian culture and I am delighted to say that we are joined by a number of witnesses today who are going to take part in this round table discussion. Can I welcome Tatjana Folewska, creative director Ukrainian Institute, David Coddling, Ukrainian UK season director, British Council, Anna Bobnova, head of arts, the British Council, Daria Bondarenko, international project manager, Ukrainian Freedom Ballet, George Finlaytor, head of community and economic development at Historic Environment Scotland and Professor Jeffrey Sharkey, principal of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Welcome to you all. Can I suggest that this discussion is informed by the themes from the cultural leadership dialogue that I've just mentioned and that we structured the discussion in three parts. Those parts being people, places and partnerships. I'll begin with a question from myself at the start of each theme and then bring in our witnesses and other colleagues. I don't want in any way to constrain the conversation and would like to say to our guests that please feel free to raise whatever issues you feel might be relevant when we're not technically bound by these strict limits. There may be a fair bit of crossover between these themes. To begin with on the theme of people, can I ask each of our guests, first of all, a question around a quote, which is that we need to be focused on ways to sustain and develop individual professional cultural careers disrupted by the invasion. So my question is, how can we best achieve that? What are your thoughts? How can we sustain and develop individual careers that may have been disrupted? And I'm going to start with Tetiana. Please, if you could have a go at answering that question. Thank you for having us here and thank you for putting Ukrainian culture as the only agenda of your committee. We pressure this attention and this commitment of the Scottish Parliament. Regarding your question, we raised this in August and unfortunately the situation hasn't changed to the better since August, maybe on the contrary. Maybe we can, you know, divide and speak about different categories of people in culture from Ukraine, starting from students, for example, whose education was interrupted and who have to continue their studies, especially, let's say, professions like music, like performing, which is not able to do on distance. You cannot learn play piano through Zoom and being in a bomb shelter for days of the semester will do no good for your training. So allowing Ukrainian students to come and continue their studies in your university, schools, academies and conservatoires would be a tremendous help in helping raise a new generation of Ukrainian cultural actors. For the professionals I think it would be very important to help people continue their practices because art is not something that you can stop for a long time and then continue without any change of quality. You have to always write in order to be a good writer. You always need to direct in order to be a good director. So if there is an opportunity to invite Ukrainian actors to work temporary for, you know, half a year, a few months to local institutions, to have internships, to have some kind of exchange where they can come and continue their practices and gain new knowledge and exchange and also teach about Ukrainian art because, as we all know, Ukraine was overlooked for a while and this gap is a great chance to fill in that gap now. Of course hosting existing Ukrainian cultural product exhibitions, performances, inviting for the tours, inviting exhibitions, so a commission new works also. So I would name these for the beginning and I'm sure my colleagues have also something to add. Can I turn to David? Thank you and thank you also from me for this invitation. Focusing particularly on individuals for the moment, one of the things that we discussed in August here during the Culture Summit session was around the vital importance of maintaining the links between, the active links between artists who might at the moment still be in Ukraine and those outside and also bearing in mind that there is quite a lot of movement actually. There are a number of artists and arts technicians as well. Let's not forget the other part of the art sector, the different technicians and the different people who make part of, you know, arts happen, that they move around in and out. So finding ways, I think, through twinning at the very individual level of shadowing with counterparts can be very effective when they have, you know, allies who have a similar role and that might be in terms of artistic practice or it might be, come back to the question of, for example, technicians, arts funders as well, people who, you know, are involved in administrative aspects of supporting fundraising for the arts, to link with their counterparts, to buddy up and to spend time. And I think we also perhaps need to think of it in a more multilateral way because those links, you know, these people do move around. I think that if this can be done in a way that involves organisations and people in other countries in Europe as well as here in Scotland, that will actually benefit the links with Scotland in the long term or elsewhere in the UK for that matter. That, you know, the, once the relationship is established and the conversations start, then looking towards the future, stronger links will develop and the professional enrichment of those individuals will be, will be for advanced. Thank you. George, would you like to contribute? Yes, thank you. I think it's in two areas that we feel that their support can be done. One is a roundabout and it's picking up the themes that David and other things is mentoring and supporting individual colleagues coming across. But the area probably I'll focus on because I think David has spoken about is the kind of in reconstruction and postwar reconstruction is that notion of build back better as part of that and learning from some of the systems may predate, you know, from Soviet era thinking, if I understand it, from colleagues of the last workshop there. And it's about upgrading systems and planning. For us, we are part of the built environment, so it's looking at those massive reconstruction of cities, et cetera, that require a very different approach and looking at that. So it's not only sort of focus on people, which I absolutely agree is essential. It's also looking at the systems and thinking, which is another different area. And I think Scotland has a lot to offer on that and it's planning system, it's community based approaches as well. So I think there's a lot there that we can do. But picking up the last point, David, it's got to be part of a multilateral work because the scale of this is obviously immense. I'm going to ask Daria to contribute. Thank you for having us here. So I can say from practice because I have lost the work in Ukraine in the cultural sphere. We moved and my husband is a dancer also. So we face directly to our family that there is no way how to move forward with possibility to work if you are dancer, if you are artist there in Ukraine. And the case that you don't know how to find the way to be expressed in another country. So there is a question of having a platform or something like a good vision site where you can find the way where you can go and what you could do there. For example, if you're talking about dancers, we were thinking about cooperation with common domestic schools, universities, cultural agencies to cooperate with and to improve the understanding, for example, if you're talking about of Scottish people, the understanding of Ukrainian culture, Ukrainian modern culture. Because I think that there is a big problem of the world of understanding the real identity of Ukrainian culture. How do you think we best do that? I think that for me, as we faced, people don't know how to find the way where they can be useful. So maybe there is a question of making more opening opportunities for people to come to Scotland, for example. If you are a sinner, you don't know where to go. Who could be happy to have you here? Who could be happy to give you a possibility to express yourself and to give your knowledge or talent? Maybe it's about more worldwide information about the possibility of cultural exchange. I'm going to bring in Alasdair and then go to Anna Alasdair. On the back of that point, I know that some of you are involved in trying to match people up and create projects. I don't know if anyone can say anything about how that might be helpful in terms of finding roles for people in Scotland or matching people up with the events. I know that you have an interest in that, but... How do you match people? What's the better way of matching? By way of a brief answer, I'm sure that other colleagues and others will have other responses. What we very much are doing is building on existing links. There are existing exchanges which have happened. We have here in the room cryptic from Glasgow, for example, who have very close links with a cultural centre, particularly in Dnipro. That's one thing. It's looking at where there are existing links because it's very useful to use the material that you already have, especially when it's good material, to find ways of reinforcing those links, both at the personal and the institutional level. I'm sure that Geoff from the Conservatoire will have more to say about that. Then, things like residencies, artist residencies. One of the things that was mentioned at the cultural summit was how useful it would be, and this is something that we are very much exploring, is having some funding to commission new work. Commissioning new work would involve exchange, research, residencies across the different art forms. That means, for example, finding and looking at the range of different opportunities that they would be here in Scotland for initially a residency with an artist, writer, dancer, whatever painter. That's when they make these. There has to be a conversation. It's very important also that these conversations are not prescribed, that the outcome of the conversation is not prescribed, because the artists need to explore together what they're going to do. I think that that would be a very interesting mechanism. Can I turn to Anna, both on the specific question of matching but also on the wider question of sustaining people's careers? Quite a lot have been already said. There are a few points that I would like to emphasise from my side. One thing that is probably really important, like David said, is to build on the existing ties. Also, probably what would need to be done is to have a sort of mapping of who is in Scotland. We know that there are students in Glasgow. Now we know that there are certain dancers in Edinburgh, but it's very hard to understand who is actually here. I think hearing their voices would help identify what kind of help and support they need here on the ground. I also agree with the point that there are quite a lot of artists that are back in Ukraine, and they probably need the support even more than people who are here. Because they are in an absolutely different environment, a lot of them cannot practice their art form for various reasons. One of it can be even motivation, because when you are in war, the essential, when your country is in war, your essential reason for existence is actually to make sure that there is peace. I know that from a lot of conversations from musicians and poets, they don't write, because it's like you can't find a reason to do and time to contemplate on things. Probably the short-term residencies for those kind of people would really help. I know there are plenty of opportunities here in the UK, which probably the British Council could do a really, really good work in trying to share the word, to make sure that people in Ukraine know about those opportunities. There is a question of visas. We haven't touched on it yet, but it's a big issue. Those residencies have to really understand that there is a big visa issue, which Ukrainian practitioners would have to go through in order to get to the UK. It really makes the life much harder. Mapping funding is important. I know that the British Council Scotland has actually quite extensive experience in building connections between Scotland and the rest of the world. We can use that experience in creating new connections between Ukraine and Scottish Arts Organisation, but it will need additional funding, I think, from organisations like Creative Scotland. That's a question of whether they are interested in actually supporting and helping British Council in that. Darya, did I see you wanted to come back in a minute? Yeah, just one more issue there that a lot of Ukrainians, special men who are right now inside the country, they are not on a military source, but they are sitting and literally don't do anything there, but they have no possibility to leave the country because they have no permission to leave the country of the age of 18 to 60. But there are several ways. One way is that some of them don't want to leave and there will be great to find a way to support them inside the country, but the other way they want to leave and to spread the world about Ukraine and culture all over, but they can't. And there is a great stuff that governments can give invitation for them to come to another countries and to represent Ukraine in other countries. And this invitation could help them to have a cultural permission to leave the country for two months, three months or half a year was coming back, but they can spend this time more useful around the world to highlight their attention to Ukrainian culture. Instead of sitting in Ukraine and just sitting in bombshell. Am I right in thinking that that's what happened in the summer with the ballet? Yeah, the ballet has the one month permission from cultural ministry to leave the country for one month to represent here and they needed to come back till the 1st of September to Ukraine and they did it for sure. And we are happy to have such a great possibility to do this. But anyway, right now they can't leave the country to come here and to just try to find a work or to try to find some, even these connections that could be here. So that's why they need to have support with invitation. Thank you. Thank you for that. Finally, can I ask Geoffrey if you want to? Sorry, Greg, it's Geoffrey first and then back to Tatiana. Thank you. And I want to build on Tatiana's opening remarks about people and what we can do to help. And I think the story so far at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is one of a deep desire to help when the war broke out, seizing opportunity and partnership. So the Ukrainian municipal opera and orchestra had started a tour of European cities before the war broke out. And their last city on their tour was ours in Glasgow. And I wrote to them and said, if you're in town would you like to come over to the conservatoire and about half the orchestra and singers turned up in my office wanting to find out more. And I quickly arranged for different heads of programme, whether it was voice or strings or wind or brass, to come and talk to them about what it's like to study in Scotland. We then guided them to how to apply. And this is where one of the most important partnerships is with that of the Scottish Government. Because without the Scottish Government making Ukrainians be like home students, we could not have afforded to take them. So I'm grateful to the Scottish Government. But then it still was very hard. We had my own staff tracking where our Ukrainians were because they went from a work visa and had to move to a refugee visa. And they were in one temporary housing in Edinburgh and then we had to track them to find another bit of temporary housing. Then we borrowed housing from Glasgow Caledonian University and I had a staff member tracking every bit of the way to make sure we didn't lose them. And we hired a Ukrainian graduate of ours, obviously fluent in both English and Ukrainian, just to help answer the countless queries about what do I say on this visa, how do I apply for that housing. My own staff acted as guarantors for some of the housing. It was a massive effort. The Wheatley group, I want to recognise them, we asked them for help because they built social housing, they built some housing for Ukrainians and they gave us some bursary money. Because the Scottish Government help covers tuition but it doesn't cover the cost of living. And so that's what I mean. It took a village of partnerships to make it so that 22 Ukrainians are now in full-time study at the Royal Conservatory of Scotland. And it's a beautiful thing. They're studying mainly in music but we also have two actors. I'm proud to say we also have students from Russia who are very against the war and are very much part of a cultural community that wants to be welcoming. Just as we have Palestinians and Israeli students, we have Korean and Chinese. Whatever the case might be, there's something in the Conservatoire that is a hopeful model for the rest of the world. How we have arts that go beyond language barriers that go beyond politics to express. It might be a Ukrainian composer, it might be Beethoven, it might be Chekhov, it might be Shakespeare. They come together and we're very proud of that and proud of that partnership. We also have, I think, Glasgow's twin with Kharkiv and I've reached out to work with the Kharkiv Conservatoire which was bombed. And they first of all asked me to write a formal letter of support which I was very happy to do. They have online facilities and they've asked in the first instance if we have visiting guests, masterclasses, please can we share them and beam them to Kharkiv. Which we will be happy to do. But I'm also interested, I was talking with you Dariad before the meeting again, are there ways that we can be part of that ecosystem of artists coming back. If you have dancers, maybe they can work with our dancers or they can exercise with their dancers, they can show. We're certainly growing in our knowledge of Ukrainian composers. I played Boris Latyshynski in my last trio concert, a beautiful elegy. And those composers are appearing more in our concerts than ever before. Thank you, Geoffrey. I'm going to go back to Tatiana and then bring in some colleagues. Thank you, Professor Sharki. It's just a pleasure to my ears to hear that you're playing Latyshynski. There are many more wonderful Ukrainian composers to open. I'd like to briefly answer the question about networking and matching people and also about the permission to leave the country, so I will start with the last one. The permission to leave the country can be only issued by the Ukrainian government. I mean, every ministry can request this permission, so you should just apply through the procedure through the Minister of Culture. And now we can continue afterwards, but actually it doesn't even involve any kind of inviting party. There has to be a reason, but I mean, it is just a matter of internal relation, internal government permission. The networking thing, well, such institutions as the Ukrainian Institute and British Council service as hubs, as basically these databases because we know all the actors in Ukraine. And we are there to link them with their counterparts in other countries. And we have several databases that we work with and that we suggest to our partners in different countries. One, we had the pre-invasion database, which has to be adjusted and we are doing that now. It will be public. It will be like a website with all the data about individuals, institutions, programmes. That you can just discover and explore the Ukrainian partners, find Ukrainian partners. And we also have this emergency database, which is not public, but we gathered information about who is where, who is on temporary stay in the UK, who was relocated to Germany and other countries. And when we get requests from our partners from abroad, we know that there are certain artists that are in that country at least now for some time because people relocate often, you know, so they can change the country. But we keep that database up to date. So if there is a request, we can always answer it because the Ukrainian Institute has experts on different spheres, music, theatre, literature, and each of the department knows, the sector knows who's where, so we can assist on that. Just please give us a note. Thank you very much. I'm going to go to Jenny Minto and followed by Sarah Boyack. Thank you, convener, and thank you all very much for coming. I was having a look at the Ukrainian Institute website today and reading some of the heartbreaking stories, and I was struck by a number of photographs showing Ukrainian people photographed in front of important cultural buildings. And there was one older lady specifically talked about her memories of being in the church that had been damaged. And I was struck by the beauty of the buildings and the amazing artwork, the song and the dance that were all highlighted. I'm interested because we have got a lot of families now staying within Scotland, how we can help ensure that your culture and stories and traditions and music are kept within the young children that are here. I don't know Daria if you want to talk about that. You mean to make a younger generation to be aware of the culture of Ukraine. Yes, exactly. They are here, but they are the cultural ambassadors of 10, 20 years time, so how do they ensure that we hold on to that? I think that those who are living in families, they are already making a big impact of people making know better what's going on. Maybe there is also a reason to work with schools and universities to make lessons, masterclasses, performances, some immersive theatres to tell more and to cooperate directly with the young generation to make them understand what Ukrainian culture is about. Thank you. I just wanted to say that being in Falkirk right now with my children, I should say that the schools here are really, really excellent in a way. I mean, I don't know of everyone, but the school that my kids were in was really good in including them, including the kids into the group. Making sure that the language actually was heard by other people. I mean, they taught Ukrainian during their school days, so I mean, it was really, really well organized. However, I wanted to give an example from the season, UK-Ukrain season, and we have right now a project which was initiated by the Chichester University inviting Ukrainian writer for the online residency. And as a result of it, there will be curriculum material for schools and primary schools that would introduce Ukrainian language culture, but it also can be used to work with the Ukrainian communities in various areas. I mean, something like that, but the question I guess here is where there is an interest or the connection and where there is a desire to help, it always works out. It's just the question maybe how to create those connections. So back to the question of networking and connecting the right people and the right organization to each other and making sure that they have an opportunity to work together. I'm living on a ship right now and we have a lot of kids there also. And there is a self-organized organization already on a ship called Happy Moments that are working. There are a group of people who are working with kids and it's very nice because we have made a small event in the ocean terminal right now. Then there will be a Ukrainian day in a school where a lot of kids from a ship are going there. So such small steps that are making by us as the refugee Ukrainians here that are made. But I think it's mostly about our own initiative that we are here and we just want to give kids opportunity to do something interesting, to sing, to dance, to express their talents. And it was like creating, for sure, with the help of the Scottish Government and the ship members. For sure it was a big help of them. But anyway it's more like about our own initiative. Even in a school I suggested to make a Ukrainian day there just because I think Ukrainian kids need it to feel a little bit more Ukrainian atmosphere. Tatiana, do you want to add something? Yeah, thank you for that question. I think it's crucial. It's very important because in our history there were already several generations that completely forgot their past. And that was because of the intentional imperial policy of Russia against Ukraine to erase our identity. And I think answering your question the best way to ensure that the next generation actually stays Ukrainian keeps its Ukrainian identity and continues this advocacy of Ukrainian culture anywhere is just ensuring that no other cultural heritage is destroyed. And it's safe for these people to come back to Ukraine so I think the only answer is more weapons to Ukraine so we can finish this war as soon as possible. Can I turn next to Sarah Boyack, Sarah? Thanks very much, convener. It's been really good hearing the evidence so far this morning and I want to follow up the question that Jenny Minto has just asked, which is about how we support people who've come to Scotland and you've talked about your already self-organising, which is actually great to hear. And then it's thinking about how we can make those connections. You've got the work that the British Council is doing, fantastic initiatives you've taken at the Conservatoire. Our national cultural and local cultural organisations in and they are facing challenges. So I'm thinking about what is the win-win in terms of networking people together. The Ukrainian community in Edinburgh, for example, is just off the chart and supporting people. So it's thinking about how you make those connections. You've talked about the twinning links you have with Glasgow. We've got a similar thing in Edinburgh. So when I visited the ship a few weeks ago, what struck me was the number of people that were online. They were working or they were online. So we've learnt during Covid that you can still make the connections. It's just that somebody needs to curate. You need a bit of money to try and pull people together and thinking what are the opportunities that we could potentially support in Scotland. Support Ukrainian artists who come here and then supporting that kind of networking with people back in Ukraine where you could begin to think about you make that connectivity. So we've been talking about the wellbeing benefits of arts and culture and you're talking about keeping your culture and your identity alive. There's potentially networks across those ambitions. It's just how we curate it and support people to make those connections. I can see you've got some thoughts about how we could do that. I don't have a quick answer, but just thinking about what Daria you were saying on the ship. So I talked about our HE programmes in the 22, but we also have probably the largest in the UK pre-HE programme. They're called our junior's department. Young people from primary school up through the end of school that do music, dance, drama, production and film. We do that in Glasgow. We also have centres dotted around the rest of Scotland. I would love to connect some of the people on the ship or elsewhere, some young people living into those pre-HE and find mechanisms to do that, whether we need to raise bursary money to afford it or something. I'd like to do that. I think between Tatiana and David you were talking about the technical theatre. That's something I just wanted to raise. We teach technical theatre at the Conservatoire. We teach carpentry for set-making, scenic arts, costume making. We have electricians doing lighting, sound. There's a desperate shortage of these people in Scotland. Covid drove them out of the theatres because the theatres were closed. They all got jobs with better working hours. They're not coming back. When you add to that the positive that the screen industry, which I also deeply support, is taking many of them, we have a need. There's an absolute need. If there are technical theatre or technical screen people in Ukraine that could come over and do residencies with our theatres, screen or workshops with our students, that's an actual need that Scotland has that could marry up with some of the skills that your people might have. I'd like to explore those two areas. As a postscript, we've already got thousands of Ukrainians living in Scotland now. Are there opportunities that we could create for them as well? People who have come here, who are skilled in that sector? We've got language skills. Is there a way that we could potentially make those connections? I think for Ukrainians right now it's very working. We have telegram groups and it looks really for us the most popular stuff. Telegram groups in a lot of spheres, like for example painters, they're gathered in a group from all of the parts of Scotland and they're trying to organise meetings to meet each other, to understand who are here, to understand who are working or not, to share their experience of working. I think that this works that already a lot of people are gathered online in such groups and there should be just a direct point what whom we need and who need to find and then there's easy to do. I feel that because I can say that I know especially who are here right now and who are working in each sphere and who are still looking for his professional work here in Scotland or just decided that it's impossible and go to a hotel for example. This is also a case that a lot of people they don't think that they can find professional cultural work because it's complicated, there is another culture and a lot of reasons so they just forget about this, close their cultural stuff and they go just to work to a hotel or to a restaurant. Can I bring in my colleague Maurice Golden for a question? Thank you deputy convener. I'm interested in probing the mapping exercise and what that might look like on a practical level. On one side you've got the cultural organisations based here in Scotland which may have funding, which may have opportunities and how do we match that with Ukrainians here in Scotland? It's almost like a skills database, could they access an app to flag where they are, who they are, what they can do and then the other part is how we then link all that with those artists and others that are based in Ukraine, which sounds like we've got a database there but how do we link all that up quickly and easily? Sorry to tell it. A career day? I don't know, something like your Korean culture day, you know, just like announce it and make a call, bring people together and just make a place for them to meet. I don't know, it's just a lucky guess. I think they could be a really good basis but I also know that any municipality, every municipality in Scotland has people who are responsible for Ukrainians living in their communities. So I mean you kind of understand where those, but it needs to be like probably a little research and whether it's a Ukrainian club in one of those cities could take this forward or it's a technical question that could be explored. I think Mark Ruskell wants to come in as well. Yeah, thanks. I mean sadly we're seeing around the world continuing wars, oppression, climate breakdown, refugees coming from many different communities with different cultures and in Scotland we've seen different refugee communities develop here in recent years particularly from Syria, Afghanistan. I'm just wondering what, if there's been any dialogue or shared learning with those communities and the approaches that have been taken to preserve and develop and integrate their culture within Scotland as well. I was struck by some of the work that I think the Scottish Refugee Council have done working with a number of those communities. I was also struck by what Geoffrey said about the diversity within the Conservatoire as well and people from very different backgrounds, histories, cultures coming together. So I wonder if there was reflections there on how that work has happened in Scotland and whether you've been aware of it and whether you've linked into it, learnt from it, contributed to it. I think David wants to come in. First of all, certainly speaking from the point of view of the British Council and I myself actually previously have worked very extensively in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. So I've been very much involved over the last few years for example in our work on cultural connections with Syria for example. I think there's a great deal of learning and often working with partners such as Scottish Refugee Council that you mentioned here. I think that it's a very important question. It's one that where what we need to do, what we are doing but it's still very much incipient is looking at the comparison of experience, the comparing of notes, also where possible bringing together some of the different, I'm speaking here about the artists, artists who are able to share in a space some of their experiences. That will be happening for example this month in Belfast. It's a particular angle but that's at the Outburst Queer Arts Festival where an Outburst Queer Arts has a particular focus on queer arts obviously. But that's a particular angle particularly when looking at refugees often artists who are queer artists face particularly complex situations in relation both to their sometimes, in relation both to their own community and to the host community. So we will have Ukrainian, Palestinian and I think also Lebanese artists together among other things looking at some of the challenges that they face about both their practice and about the way they work. So that's a very small example but there are all sorts of ways in which we of course the experience with Ukraine what has happened in terms of the influx of the disruption caused by the latest phase of the invasion and the Russian aggression because that's what it is. We've been responding with the mechanisms for creating the season and so on but that is very much on our agenda in the British Council about how we interact between the experience that we have had with partners from for example Syria to name one example and again a country from which there are many refugees here in Scotland. There were several occasions at least from what I know about the difference of experiences from Ukraine and other countries, Syria, Afghanistan and so on. The situations are different and I think the difference about Ukrainian situation is that we are not considered refugees, we are displaced people and we expect to return home as soon as it will be safe. So even officially in terms of legislature we are not refugees, so we are not aimed to get integrated into society. It's still temporary and we realize that. There is also certain issue with this comparison of experiences because Ukraine is often being blamed that Ukrainians are treated much better than other refugees and we get this kind of guilt for being treated better than other refugees and often being ostracized by other refugee communities in hope. That's not only about the UK, it's all over Europe because of the recent experiences with Syria and Afghanistan. Many people kind of point that out. I'm going to go to Geoffrey next but I think in so doing I'd like to move on to the second theme which was places. I wonder if you could make the point that you're about to make but also Geoffrey you spoke about the example of the Royal Conservatoire links with the Kharkiv Conservatory and I would be interested to hear how that came about and the ways in which the initiative has been developed and then we can have a broader discussion about the theme of places. Thank you. In a sense my point actually neatly goes into places because I'm just I'll talk about Kharkiv in just a second but I'm very sensitive to some of the things that we heard during the cultural summit which was some of the cultural leaders in Ukraine saying we want to keep our cultural leaders here. We don't want them all to go and we want them back and it makes me think about our duty of care to the students we have. We've given them four years of protected safe study and then how do we help them when they graduate? We all pray that the invasion is done and peace reigns in less than four years but if not are there work opportunities for them here? How might we place them back in Ukraine? How can we have that dialogue? The twin cities might help. So with Kharkiv I was just aware that Glasgow had twinned long ago with Kharkiv so I simply wrote to the rector there saying who I was, that we were taking these Ukrainian students, how can I help? And we started a dialogue and I think we became an official, we have a memorandum of understanding between us that we just now need to work on what that means. I think it will be on the online world first of all but I can imagine something deeper when there's easier exchange. The normal kind of MOUs that we have certainly when we were part of Erasmus but we're still fighting to keep that with Europe was terms swapping students, swapping staff or shared projects across or shared upscaling of our teachers. We have something called the icon group that we do with the Hague and that we do with Oslo. I'd love to add Kharkiv to that group. So there are things that we can do that are place making with our partners and I don't have a quick and easy answer about where should our graduating students go and how do they come back and stay safe at the same time. Sarah, do you want to come in on the theme of places? I think just to pick up that last point I'm thinking about what do we do after today and maybe one of the things we need to think about is how we record some of the ideas that have come forward that we could share with our cultural sector, our higher education sector on things at Erasmus, share with the Scottish Government about potential things that could be done where it's best practice, say what the British Council is doing that we could then share more widely. So that was a quick response to that comment. So we don't lose good ideas that are coming around the table and then encourage other people to think well what could we do. So I think that that's a good thing. In terms of the places you've obviously got twinning but I'm wondering in terms of institutions and connections that we can make because it is a lot easier now to do that connection online. Some of the most inspiring things I've seen things like films where you actually see a broadcast which is live. That requires more coordination because it sounds simple to put something on in a film but people need to build that, curate it. But I'm thinking about our broadcasting companies as well. Are there opportunities? Are there connections being made that could actually help people whether they're in Scotland or whether they're still living in Ukraine where you could make those connections? Even thinking of the ship, the MS Victoria, have we got the physical broadcasting capacity where you could make those connections? That's theatre HD for example. I assume that's what you're referring to. That's theatre HD so it's the big program distribution over the world of the best UK theatre pieces and we were very excited to have it in Ukraine. It's stimulated and encouraged a lot of theatre work to be filmed. Not broadcasted because it's a very complex thing but the screenings, the film, the performances can be done. You do need the curatorial work of putting it all together. What we can do is with the film, with the cinemas it's actually quite easy because we have a couple of organisations in Ukraine that have really good digitalised archive of what is called the Soviet Ukrainian era. Extremely great pieces of work that were digitised and are now shown in the cinemas and festivals around the UK. They can be shown. You need a curatorial curator to come either to the Ukrainian Institute or us. We can put them in touch with the organisation that can share the film. We also have an extremely well-developed emerging generation of young filmmakers that are travelling around the world right now and have really, really promising pictures that are winning the awards all over Europe and the US and the United States. There are things to show and I'm sure that Tatiana or I would be happy to put you in touch with the organisation that called rights and are capable of supporting the filming or screenings in the communities around Scotland. That's actually probably not the easiest form of art that can travel around. Maurice Ewing. Just building on Anna's point around preserving films, I wonder how much pressure is on collections and museums and indeed preserving cultural buildings and what we could potentially do to support that. It's a huge problem actually because I think according to the recent reports of the Minister of Culture, more than 500 cultural objects, architecture, museums, libraries were destroyed or severely damaged. One of the last cases is the Hananko Museum, which is in the centre of Kiev. It's the largest collection of international art. The bomb fell just like 20 metres in front of the museum so they don't have any windows, any doors, nothing, even the blinds in the museums were just thrown away. Because of the, I don't want to say collapse, but a very difficult economical situation, the Ukrainian economy is 40 per cent down. We are in the beginning of a very difficult winter and museums really lack funding even for just surviving through winter. Just like keeping the premises warm and safe and just locking the windows. I know that there are already some connection between the Minister of Culture and Ministers of Culture of other countries, but there are also many campaigns of individual museums in order to sustain, in order to be able to survive this winter because they don't operate, they don't get any ticket sales, they don't get any kind of practice work and they need to pay their stuff to pay their bills to warm up the building just in order to survive. There are different museum associations and funds to keep the institutions running. For example, there is one institution, one fund that supports museum in Kiev directed by Ihor Poshivala who was part of our delegation in August here and he shared the experience of their fund and what they are doing. There is one fund in Lviv operated by the Museum of Terror and they are also providing assistance to museum workers around Ukraine so there are several funds that can and do work including the ICOMUK for example who is generously supporting some of the initiatives. There is also emergency art fund which supports various institutions and people in Ukraine which is very active and a colleague actually of the British Council Ukraine is co-founder and CEO of that fund as well. So, I mean there are several institutions that are reliable, that are interested, that are active and more flexible than state institution let's say like Minister of Culture or any state agencies that can be of great help. We have a list of those institutions that we share with our colleagues. I will be happy to share it with you as well. It provides you a huge range of different initiatives. David, you mentioned the emergency art fund Tatiana and they have been supported also by the cultural protection fund which is a British Council initiative and there are a couple of things I'd say about that. It has great potential for further involvement with Ukraine. What we have done so far through the cultural protection fund and this is very important also is the work that was initial what you might call cultural protection first aid, things like at the level of making sure that material was available for padding of sculptures on facades of buildings in Lviv or Desta or whatever. Right at the beginning that sort of thing that the cultural protection fund was involved in but that was very, it's very multilateral because it's an area in which there are lots of different players from different countries and it's very important not to be stepping on each other's toes and you know so it is complex but it's crucially important. The cultural protection fund which was established by the British Council with some funding from the UK government five years ago now has up until now, up until this year, been largely geographically focused on the Middle East and North Africa and South Asia but there is now a specific fund related to work in Ukraine and we do want to expand that and I think there's another area where in terms of, as well as direct protection if you like, awareness, this seminar that we did just last ten days ago on the museums and the problems, the issues facing museums which was done online about raising awareness around all of the different issues that cultural heritage faces both intangible as well as tangible cultural heritage is also crucially important and the cultural protection fund, I mentioned this because the cultural protection fund is equally interested and involved with intangible as well as material heritage. I can provide more details about that, I'll not go on now but I just wanted to signal that and the importance of multilateral engagement as well. Can I explore that when you need to talk about multilateral engagement? Can you just elaborate on that a bit? Well, where we, and this is not true not only of Ukraine but of other situations and geographies, it's very important to, so our cultural protection fund colleagues, they're part of a wider conversation, George will be familiar with this as well of course, with other organisations both here in Scotland and the rest of the UK or indeed worldwide because there's a lot of different interests here, a lot of different funds, both governmental and different foundations and it's very important that there is a conversation taking place between them, there are coordination fora to help to make sure that the work is coordinated, that there isn't overlap and so on, that's what I was referring to. Jenny, do you want to come in? Yes, thanks. Before I was elected to this Parliament I managed a small museum on Islay and I think of the disaster recovery plan that I had there which only considered really flooding or wind damage, certainly not war damage. I'm interested to hear what maybe historic environment Scotland, your breadth of knowledge in this area and how you can perhaps support the rebuilding, you said the building back better in Ukraine. Then I'd also like to touch as well on that I think culture is also our natural environment as well. I represent Argyllun Bute which is a very rural area, it's got lots of small towns so the twinning could go further than just the big cities, so how do we move twinning on to smaller towns within Ukraine? I know that you've got the wonderful beach forests and we have Celtic rainforests in Argyllun Bute so is there connections that we can make in the natural cultural world as well but if George, if you want. Just picking up David's points there about the multilateral approach to it. Currently through members of our staff we will, who are Acomos members who are part of that UNESCO approach, will be feeding in information back to Ukrainian colleagues supporting with advice there, colleagues in ICON in the conservation industry which mostly on the museum side will be providing support there as well. Also members of our staff are part of the British Army's cultural protection unit, so again these are all the multilateral frameworks for protection of the historic environment, trafficking etc. There's a lot of that going on at the moment but I wanted to pick up the point that Mr Golden made about mapping and moving on to the frameworks which I think is really important because the last six months have been great for us to understand through the British Council and the international summit what the demands and needs are but I do think we need to move towards structuring that conversation much more clearly so we really understand that. Yesterday I was looking at the world bank with the Ukrainian Government and you have done a rapid damage and needs assessment dates to June and they are looking at £5.2 billion just to restore the cultural sector so the scale of this is immense and part of that is for us to understand where the aid is needed and it is picking up David's point part of those partnerships as well. We are well placed to do that, we hosted a summit back in May or June with the European Heads of Heritage Forum and again it's sharing understanding because the scale of this is immense, we've not seen it since the second war and it is multilateral partnerships that we need to approach this so I think we're best placed to do that, we're part of that network but I do think we need to move towards formalising the conversation more so that it deepens the understanding between our organisations, British Council and Ukrainian colleagues. I'm glad we came on to discuss this because one of the topics I wanted to raise was how we approached the repair and rebuilding of what might be called cultural infrastructure in Ukraine and I think we've covered that. I don't know if anyone has any other observations they'd like to make on that, if not I was going to turn to our third and final theme which is that of partnerships which I guess I'm overlapsed with quite a lot of what we've already discussed but relationships and collaborative working doesn't need to be restricted to institutions and I just wondered what people thought about the role of individuals and communities, schools, businesses, the third sector within what we've discussed and I appreciate we've touched on that but I don't know if anyone wants to kick off with that. I would just want to answer the question about twinning in smaller communities or different areas and my first thought was inviting you to Ukraine to see how many beautiful places there are like forests along the coastline but then I realised how dangerous it is at the moment and maybe I will postpone it until our victory but there are definitely many wonderful places and to name just like one it's the Askanianova, it's the natural resort, it's under occupation now we don't know the state of it but it's a beautiful ancient park which is also a place for wildlife animals who just like you know zebras like running around the step and it's just a beautiful place that would be one of the key places that you could look at you know of the interest and you know the Crimea itself and Herzog area and there are islands also in Ukraine not alone Nijini but also other ones so I think that would be a lot of things to discover and find the most appropriate and as the centralisation worked in Ukraine for the last few years there is much more power and sovereignty for local communities so it can be initiative of your community and the local community in Ukraine to arrange this twinning and to develop it the way you want. By reiterating how important I think residencies can be here and also thinking about you know what can be done easily you know there is a fantastic network here in Scotland of arts including in Argyll and Bute not least you know some of them are in very urban others in very rural and coastal settings and so on and you know there's a great opportunity there and they're anxious they're eager to work to link and there you know so we you know whatever we can do first of all to you know map who is there who's available you know you can't you know have to work out you know when places are available and so on but then of course it needs some funding we need to get the visas we haven't talked about the visas I prefer not to but you know there's a network already there of organisations some of them very small as well as much larger where you know we could actually just key into and start making some of these very dynamic lasting links and I'd repeat the key is by not prescribing not trying to prescribe the outcomes but leaving the artists involved to work those out together. Relationships are ones that start from the person isn't it? Yeah and there's loads of places that one could start with here. I mean I've got two ladies in Lockheilpedd that have been doing amazing work filling lorries to send to Ukraine and they're currently trying to capture or fill a lorry with Christmas presents so that the children can have a recognisable Christmas and they're saying to me oh we'd love to twin with such and such an area so because they've already started that relationship and I think that's really positive. I just want to add that I think that all conscious Ukrainians right now they understand the value of culture heritage and language and if I'm talking about cultural front they're not just only looking for a work to live but they're looking for an opportunity to show the Ukrainian culture and heritage and not just to integrate inside and other communities and just to work but to come and to show how the Ukrainian culture and heritage looks like it's about like a noble mission of all Ukrainian culture represented. Jeffrey and then I'm going to go to Sarah. Thank you. I think these partnerships are going to get more mapped together. I'm excited about the ways that we can work together. I mentioned technical theory, you mentioned filmmakers and we have a huge growth in the screen industry here. There's also something that Ukraine can give to us in Scotland and it's, I mentioned, convener, that we celebrated our 175th anniversary here in the Scottish Parliament last night and I paraphrased John F Kennedy who's quote was on the back of the Kennedy centre which I always stared at when I was there saying what our civilizations remembered for when the dust has settled. Are they remembered for their great economies? Are they remembered for their victories in battle? He said no, they're remembered for the art they leave behind. And there's something incredibly moving about our Ukrainian friends in the midst of bombs going off saying we must fight to protect our culture and we must do so here in Scotland too. Our culture sector is under extreme challenge. I know we have really stretched budgets and that includes our conservatoire but just that mindset that we don't want to only appreciate what is in danger of being bombed and there's something that we can learn from one another and we can help each other through these leaner and hard times. I think that's a really good point because I'm thinking here about the people, the partnerships, the links that we have that could be developed better, the work that's been done by the British Council already, it's how that work is promoted. The other thing I'm thinking about is sponsorship. Before we started the official meeting, Jenny and I were talking about individual sponsorship for sculpture in Scotland. There's something about giving people the opportunity to support networks, whether it's corporate sponsors, whether it's individual people making donations to existing cultural organisations in Scotland that are then doing that kind of outreach work and supporting artists through the perfect storm. Our committee report on Monday talked about that. How do we make those kind of connections? Then I'm thinking about looking forward. We've got this excellent piece of work from the British Council mapping what's coming in terms of arts and festivals organisations. Are there ways to co-ordinate in so that individual artists can be thinking in six months' time I could be at an ex-festival in Scotland? Obviously thinking of the Edinburgh international festivals and the range of opportunities. Is there something about making those connections from here going forward that we as a committee could do to help writing to the cabinet secretary, sharing the ideas that have come out today? Talking about Erasmus, thinking about your points about visas planning ahead. Are there things we could do just to give a degree of energy and the connectivity that's come from this round table today? I would like to thank Professor Geoffrey for getting the essence of this war because this war is against Ukrainian identity and not so much about Ukrainian land or economy because it's the culture that Russians aimed to and target. They don't want us to exist as the nation, as the culture. That's why it's crucial to protect it because that's the essence of the conflict. In terms of co-operation and partnership, I would like to point out maybe two main things. One is mapping Ukraine. Ukraine was missing until 24 February from most of institutions of agendas university courses. I think one of the recent examples of Timothy Snyder having a course on Ukraine in Yale University shows how much the world had missed not knowing and not learning about Ukraine. My first call would be to discover Ukraine, put Ukraine on your agenda, plan Ukraine in your curriculum, in your libraries, order more books about Ukraine. There are plenty of new books coming out. Learn more, invite lecturers to speak, watch movies, show movies, play stage performances, so just discover. Give more space, give more air and more attention to Ukraine because how much it was overlooked and we really need to open it to the audiences. And the second is actually finding partners in Ukraine, so institutions in Ukraine that you could be helping to restore, reform because this is not going to be a rebuilding because majority of our institutions in Ukraine needed to be reformed because they were struggling from this post-Soviet kind of heritage which needed to be rethought. And now we sometimes joke between ourselves that that's the real decommunisation happening, then you know Russians are just destroying everything and we need to build it from the scratch so we will just build the better institutions. So it's a great example how you already have a partnership with the Harkiv Conservatoire, you know it's a great start where you already have your partner, you already see the needs of each other and the interest between each other. So I think every, I mean each institution can do that, just finding at least one institution in Ukraine to develop a lasting partnership. And I'm sure and we are already working on several bigger projects, for example establishing a network of new art schools in Ukraine that will be kind of a special edition of Manifesto, the Nomadic European Biennial, but it will be open to all institutions so we'll not limit ourselves to EU countries only. So for example you know helping to open a new film school in Ukraine somewhere in a smaller village, not necessarily in a huge city, would be a great help. Thank you Titiana, I'm going to go to Mark then Alastair. Yeah, thanks, convener. I think it's been an excellent session this morning, I've learned a lot and I think the points about partnership are very well made. I had a lingering thought though and it was about Eurovision being hosted in Liverpool sadly, but nevertheless within the UK. And just whether you saw that as an opportunity, an entry point really, particularly for young people in this country to get a sense of Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian popular culture and maybe then become curious about other aspects of Ukrainian culture that could be investigated and followed up. For sure we already did it because in Ukraine Freedom Ballet will participate almost in all Eurovision through the Ukraine starts to do this and dancers were visited and performed in each Eurovision I think was Ukrainian and international. So honestly there was the director of Freedom Ballet Lena Caledon because she was already in London and never had some communication with the Eurovision group. I can say is it successful and not what it will be just on the side of communication but anyway we understand that for us it's a great platform and again we did it like by our own. We just tried to find somebody to make acknowledge each other that we are here and we can do this, we can participate, we want to. So that's why it's again maybe about the platforms of how to connect and how to say that we are here in UK and we can and we want to work. Just before going to Alastair David wants to come in on this. Meeting with the Liverpool team just yesterday I've been involved we from the point of the Ukraine season have been involved with the discussions in fact I was briefing the candidate cities including Glasgow I gave every candidate city the same briefing before they were preparing their bids I was very careful about that now. Obviously since Liverpool was selected I've had more conversations with them but just to say about that question of the wider resonance of it across Europe indeed not just these two countries. What we have been looking at with our Ukrainian Institute partners indeed we had a meeting together with BBC with Volodymyr from the Ukrainian Institute are things like a wider precisely what Tatiana was referring to around wider awareness of Ukraine and the opportunity that it provides for a more diverse cultural package as it was. So for example I think I can say this because you know it's not a secret that the BBC will be as part of the Eurovision programme will be planning a series of programming stuff on the telly during the period before the Eurovision contest actually happens. Which will be of a different nature things like documentary film from Ukraine and different that's something that's being planned that they're looking at doing and then we've also been looking with the now with the Liverpool team and where there are things related to the work of the season that we might be able to do alongside things that they're planning in the public space in Liverpool for example including relating to the question of destruction of cultural heritage for example. How we might in some way do some kind of programme which draws attention to that through some kind of installation in Liverpool so that there are various ways in which and that will obviously have a much wider audience because it's Eurovision let's face it. Probably a wider audience in this committee hearing but only just. Thank you very much. I'm sure there'll be stuff competition between the two events. A few people have mentioned quite rightly Ukrainian identity and the threats it's always faced. I just wondered about language and literature particularly what efforts are being made in terms of partnership. To make sure that Ukrainians and others get to hear about the Ukrainian literary tradition and also about the opportunities that young Ukrainians particularly children have to learn to read and write in Ukrainian once they're here to keep hold of that connection with their culture. That's a very good point, David. There's a strong literary strand and when I say literary I mean spoken word and written word and published word to the UK Ukraine season and one of the things that we have identified as one of the key issues is the need to reinforce the traffic of translation from Ukrainian into English and also into Welsh and into Gallic and that's something we'll be looking at because that very much relates to a lot of what we in the British Council do in literature and publishing because it is critical and it takes a very long time. It's very low under the radar work but it has we know from experience with many other languages and cultures. When you can start first of all increasing the flow, first of all of contact between translators, getting writers exposed and then translating which is what the season is doing at the moment. I'm going to do details about the particular events but they're there. You can look at the document which was circulated but particularly the strengthening of the flow of contact with contemporary Ukrainian literature and therefore into translation, into publication and I stress something we'll be working on. It's not just into English but also into Welsh and Gallic and perhaps into Irish as well in future but that's something that's very much part of the programme for the season. Just quickly in the first month of the invasion started the first aid of Ukraine initiated a project bringing Ukrainian books to Ukrainian kids elsewhere in the world and several publishing houses donated for free the files of their books and these books were printed locally in all the countries with help of local partners and I think one of the largest number of books was printed in the UK thanks to the local print house. I think there were several thousands of books and they are distributed through local Ukrainian communities so my kids have a whole shelf of Ukrainian new books that we received from our borough in London so I think that was taken care of at least from what I know there was enough of this. I just want to ask that here in Edinburgh it's a problem with this to find Ukrainian book. I have a lot of libraries already and there is no Ukrainian books and I was thinking about that Ollena Zelenska programme and I was thinking how to bring this programme here to Scotland and to Edinburgh because my kids taken books from Kiev while Royal Mail so that's a case also. Thank you. When you talk about Ukrainian books just to be clear you mean books in Ukrainian language for children and for adults as well. Yes, yes. In Ukrainian language and sorry and from Ukrainian writers it's already a new topic that right now we are looking for only Ukrainian writers to support them and to show our children Ukrainian writers. Anna. I just wanted to add that that's really an issue probably for grown ups it's not such a big deal because you can use the readers but for younger kids pictures. Pictures are really, really important and so the picture books especially for young learners because in my case the younger ones which isn't English very quickly and it's very hard if you don't have anything supportive to actually try and keep the Ukrainian language on their radar. We'll try maybe through the Ukrainian club here as well to tackle this issue. I promise to go to Sarah but then Sarah then David. Briefly because I know we're probably going to have to wind up at some point. It's kind of following on the Eurovision comment. There's a whole issue of film and broadcast media which is fantastic about telling you what is happening now. But we had a humanitarian emergency fund meeting last week and the stories of people who are helped either by the humanitarian emergency fund or by what's happening next. I wonder if there's a space for more of that which is partly about communicating culture. People that are still creating maybe it's drama, documentaries don't have the scope for our broadcast media in Scotland, BBC, Channel 4, STV with the scope for more work to be done there that would communicate both in Scotland and more broadly. I mean one of the things I'll say at the end is I think there are a lot of things that have been discussed today that we as a committee need to take away and think about how to take forward but that's certainly one of them. David. I just want to say I actually have with me in my bag. I brought it for you Anna, for your kids. Just to give a small example of one of the things we've been doing recently the children's book illustrators were present at one of the literature events that we were together with the Ukrainian Institute organisation. That was at the Cheltenham Literature Festival just last month and one of the things they have done is produced a bilingual Ukrainian and English book around reconstruction after the destruction of a community. It doesn't refer specifically to war but a community being rebuilt and the kids are coloring in and drawing in and it's a bilingual edition. So that's just one small example of some of the initiatives that can emerge from some of these partnerships. Thank you. We are sort of approaching the end of the session. I just want to give each of our witnesses an opportunity in a sentence if you can, a sort of headline that you can leave us with in terms of how we support Ukrainian culture. I appreciate that's a challenge but it's just I think what a useful way of just wrapping things up. So I'm going to start with Tatiana if you don't mind and just go around the room so you've been warned. Well for me I think it's just keeping Ukraine in your agenda's high and having Ukraine in mind when you plan something just put Ukraine there on your plan. Thank you. David. It's been said before that this war is essentially about culture. Ukraine is suffering an onslaught on its culture. There's something which is a wider significance for us all and you know it's around the value, the importance of an independent cultural sector and that is important for Ukraine. It's important here, it's important across Europe at this critical moment that we face. The independence of the cultural sector everywhere is where the strength of our free societies is really nurtured. Thank you for that George. Like picking up David's big objectives there's more structured focus dialogue in areas that we can support Ukrainian colleagues. Jeffrey. I think it's that culture matters and the arts might save the world. Anna. What I would ask maybe each one of you to go back home and maybe find whatever you like to do if you like to watch a film then find the Ukrainian film and watch it. If you like history then Sir Heple he translated into English and has a really, really well written history on Ukraine. Just a little bit on the Ukrainian Institute website there is a very great introduction into Ukrainian culture done in a very succinct and visual way which makes it easier. Just for you to understand what we are. I think that would be very, very, very helpful and good start. And Daria. I want to ask to draw attention to Ukrainian culture with the small steps day by day and to make people know about Ukraine and its culture and I believe that culture front is incredibly important on our past victory. Well, thank you for those particular responses and thank you to you all for coming this morning and I'd like to thank you in person. Tatiana Felewsger, David Coddling, George Finleter, Jeffrey Sharkey, Anna Bovna and Daria Bondarenko, thank you so much for coming. I think, as I said, we as a committee now must think about how best we can help and so many things have been discussed and raised this morning that I think our clerks will hopefully and helpfully try and collate those and we must sort of think as a committee what we can do going forward. And lastly, I think it's very important to keep this on the agenda, as some of you said, and that's what we will try to do and not forget because it's obviously a horrific situation, it's on-going and please take our assurances as a committee that we will continue as a committee to keep this high on our priority list. Can I also say for the record that the Minister, Neil Gray, MSP, gave a statement in the chamber on Tuesday on the status of the super-sponsor scheme? I think it's important to note what the Scottish Government is doing in that regard and we will return as a committee to our consideration of the wider question of Scotland's humanitarian response to the crisis in Ukraine in due course, but that ends this morning's meeting and can I thank you all for going.