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The cultural educational association Pina
was founded in 1997 on the initiative of the
Open Society Institute of Slovenia.
A year later we became independent and founded the association
and in 2003 we became part of the net of multimedia centers of Slovenia
where we still operate.
Pina works as an information, education and multimedia center,
which enables constant encounters of youth, exchange of information,
new ideas, knowledge and offers help with the realization
of artistic and other social projects.
We can also describe Pina as an open house or an informal academy,
which enables free access to information, knowledge and access to computer equipment
for those who want to use it or learn to use it.
The program activity of the institution is mainly dependent
on the success of the entries to competitions issued by the Ministry of Culture,
the Municipality of Koper and the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology.
All the fields of our activity are indirectly or directly linked
to the information society and we cannot imagine working
without it as it is a big part of everybody's lives.
Pina is also in charge of managing two important web portals.
The first being porton.si, where we list the most important
cultural events happening in the Coast and Karst region and
the second being trajnost.net, where we stimulate constant patterns of behavior.
Pina was envisioned as a platform which is based
free exchange of information and people.
The two main concepts that unify these people
and information are innovation and creativity.
Our areas of work range from sustainable development to high art and urban culture,
IT technologies and innovative solutions up to projects like Kultukšok,
which encompasses young artists and gives them a chance to express themselves.
We have also managed to unite a lot of people who share a lot of interests,
which is also the potential on which we have placed the development of Pina in the following years.
We have our e-caffe´ in the center of the city where through different performances
exhibitions, round tables, lectures etc., we offer answers to questions that trouble the modern man.
For elder citizens we prepare different educational courses for computer literacy
and thus help them step into modern time.
While to the young we offer a space where they
can freely and creatively move and express themselves
and in this way defeat the being just a number syndrome,
which is strongly present in our modern society.
We're also active on an international scale,
as we connect with similar organizations within and out of the European Union.
Where we share our experiences in the area of multimedia, audio/video editing,
people relations, informing and advising.
We have already realized a few recognized international projects.
Let me mention the international multimedia training iloveculture.eu,
which brought together 45 people from 9 countries of the EU and
in nine days we have filmed 18 multimedia presentations of different
non-governmental organizations.
The purpose of the courses is mainly to improve
the status of underprivileged individuals in the area of the labor market
and in this way to enhance their economical opportunities
and to increase the knowledge of information technologies.
In three years we have carried out over 150 courses
and thus educated almost 1000 individuals.
That is why in 2007 we have been chosen
as the most successful center holding these kind of courses.
They are performed through the whole year
year and until now we have already done 30 of them.
The courses are structured in four parts:
the first one being on programs Word, Excel and Power Point,
the basics of computers
the digital photo and video editing
and lastly the creating of web sites.
In this way we have educated people with special needs,
retired and unemployed citizens, mainly to reduce the digital divide.
This year we have also signed a contract with the Employment Service.
It returns the travel expenses for all the registered at the service who join the courses.
For the future we hope that these courses will be attended
by a great number of individuals who need this kind of knowledge.
In Pina I'm in charge for all the computers,
which also includes the ones in the e-caffe´ besides in the headquarters.
The computer lab in Pina is designed for all the users who have
smaller or bigger problems with their personal computer
and who cannot solve them on their own.
Here we provide them assistance in solving those problems
through the help of a mentor or
simply over e-mail at the address info@pina.si.
In the course of the project of digital contents on public access points
we also provide help in buying new computer equipment
and in this way we try to promote digital media and reduce the digital divide.
Pina has also a web server which is designed for free
hosting of non-governmental organizations.
These organizations can host their own websites on our server
and of course they can also request other services that our server provides,
since the connection to the world wide web offers a vast possibility of functionality and services.
In the last year with the collaboration of KŠOK we have developed our own way
of audio/video streaming;
that is live audio/video transmission on the internet.
For this purpose we have set up a special server
and wherever there is an internet connection
we can stream audio and video on the internet,
thus allowing the interested public to follow any event.