The rights and freedom of Belarusian students and academics are an important topic even for the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, which has joined the 11+1 project together with other Czech higher education institutions and thus expressed its support for the academic sphere in Belarus and its disapproval of the repression aimed at it.
The 11+1 project aims at creating a supportive environment for the freedom of Belarusian students and academics whose lives have been marked by persecutions on the part of the Belarusian regime. Its name refers to 8 female students, 3 male students and 1 professor who were arrested in Belarus in November 2020 and sentenced to 2 years and 2.5 years in prison.
The specific activity, which is a part of the project, is the ‘relay’ of photographs portraying these 11 students and the university professor. The photo relay 11+1 journeys from one university to another owing to the students engaged and this way it brings together Czech universities as well as foreign higher education institutions. At each participating university, 8 female students, 3 male students and one academic will take a photo with the portraits of the imprisoned and sign the photographs. The relay will then move from the Czech Republic to other European countries and it will end its journey at the European Humanities University in Lithuania, the exile university of Belarus.
The Vice-Chairmen of the Student Chamber of the Academic Senate of the University of South Bohemia Bc. Lukáš Lang and Bc. Filip Bláha, set out to take over the ‘relay’ of photographs from colleagues from the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen on January 28, 2022.
Students of the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice joined the 11+1 project in early February 2022 together with doc. PaedDr. Radka Závodská, Ph.D., the Vice-Rector for International Relations of USB, and had their photos with the portraits of the 8 female Belarusian students, 3 male students, and 1 professor, who are symbols of oppositions to the regime in Belarus, in front of the Václav Havel bench on campus of the University of South Bohemia. Thus, they have used their faces and signatures to support specific students and their attempt to build a democratic society.
Joining the 11+1 project is not the only effort that the University of South Bohemia has been making in the context of support for Belarusian students. USB joined the call of MEYS in support of higher education studies of Belarusian students in connection with the current situation in Belarus. 2 female students and 1 male student who were accepted to the University in the previous academic year and are continuing in their studies in their 2nd years of their bachelor’s degree programmes at the USB Faculty of Arts and the USB Faculty of Economics were supported in the academic year 2021/2022. They have been supported by a scholarship that the students may use to cover the costs related to their studies since the beginning of their studies at USB.
