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The main objective being to embrace as broad a spectrum of Chilean society as possible, activities will range from official functions at governmental level to local projects in socially underprivileged areas - the latter in conjunction with NGO's. During the course of 2005, the following activities will be taking place:

CHILE'S ANDERSEN AMBASSADORS TAKE PART IN THE OFFICIAL OPENING CEREMONY IN DENMARK OF THE HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN 2005 BICENTENARY.
The official opening of the Hans Christian Andersen bicentenary year takes place on 2 April, with a grand gala show in Copenhagen. This event will be broadcasted to a number of countries across several continents and will include a visit to Odense, the birthplace of the poet. Andersen Ambassadors from all over the world will be taking part in the opening ceremony in Copenhagen, including Chilean Ambassadors Luisa Durán, writer Isabel Allende, and soccer star Ivan Zamorano.

BOOK PROJECT: "HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN ANSWERS PABLO NERUDA"
This publication is the result of joint collaboration between the Hans Christian Andersen 2005 Foundation's and the Cultural Affairs Directorate of the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was sponsored by Mrs Luisa Durán. The book, which is entitled "Hans Christian Andersen answers Pablo Neruda", juxtaposes the works of Nobel Prize-winner Neruda and Danish Hans Christian Andersen. The Danish co-editors, Johannes Møllehave and Karsten Eskildsen, address the questions posed by Neruda in his "The Book of Questions" (El Libro de Preguntas), and have found quotations in the writings of Hans Christian Andersen to provide answers to Neruda's existentialist queries. The book is enriched with Andersen's own illustrations and paper cuts and will be published in Chile in a bilingual, Spanish-Danish edition.

The book will be officially presented by Honorary Hans Christian Andersen Ambassador Luisa Durán on 2 April during her visit to Odense, the town of Andersen's birth. The presentation will be attended by members of the Danish Royal Family, members of the Danish government, a number of Andersen Ambassadors, the Chilean ambassador to Denmark, the Danish ambassador to Chile, and many others.

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION FOR HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN AT CHILEAN SCHOOL
On 2 April, the Royal Danish Embassy in Santiago will take part in a birthday celebration for Hans Christian Andersen at two schools in the city: Colegios Monte Tabor, and Nazaret. The event has been arranged by the Chilean branch of IBBY, an organization for the promotion of children's literature. The celebration will include an address on the subject of Andersen's significance in the modern world, a reading of Andersen's story "The Little Match Girl", a local book exhibition, and group readings for school pupils. 

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN'S FAIRYTALES IN FREE CIRCULATION
On 2 April50 copies of the book "Eight Fairytales by Hans Christian Andersen" (Ochos Cuentos de Hans Christian Andersen) will be -accidentally forgotten - on tables in Santiago cafés with a message to the finder that he or she is welcome to take the book home, read it, write a few words of comment, send the comments to a special email address and then leave the book at another, random location in the city. The project has been named "Libro Libre" (Free Book), and will be officially presented on 2 April at the public library of one of the municipalities in Santiago.

MUSEUM ESTABLISHES FANTASY-WORKSHOP BASED ON THE FAIRYTALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
The Chilean interactive museum, Museo Interactivo Mirador (abbr. MIM), will, on 2 April and for the rest of 2005, be inviting children visiting the museum to take part in a theatre workshop, where they will be able to make hand puppets and perform puppet theatre inspired by the fairytales of Hans Christian Andersen.

TEACHING
In collaboration with the Chilean Ministry of Education and with the support of Mrs Luisa Durán, a nationwide competition for illustration and essay writing will be taking place in Chile from April to October, 2005. The competition invites pupils from the 5th to 8th grades at state schools to take part, and the theme of all entries will be the life and works of Hans Christian Andersen. The project will be organized by the Ministry of Education. Teaching material will be downloaded from the homepage of the Hans Christian Andersen 2005 Foundation. Also, the Royal Danish Embassy will publish 8,000 pamphlets in both English and Spanish for use in English lessons at Chilean schools.

Each administrative region will organize competitions in which pupils either write essays about Hans Christian Andersen or write their own fairytales. Each region will appoint a panel of judges comprising a teacher, an artist, and two pupils, all of them from that region. Regional winners then move on to compete at national level. The first prize will be a trip to Denmark and the second prize, a computer.

All regions will be organizing seminars at which competing pupils will take part in round table discussions on the subject of children's literature.

The Ministry of Education produces an internal magazine for distribution to all teachers in Chilean schools. It is planned that this magazine will include interviews with well-known figures, among them Honorary Hans Christian Ambassador Luisa Durán, on the subject of Hans Christian Andersen as a formative influence in their lives.

Chile's Andersen Ambassadors will take part in these activities by reading from the works of Andersen at chosen schools.

LUISA DURAN HOSTS A HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN EVENT
Honorary Hans Christian Ambassador Luisa Durán will, on 26 April, be inviting schoolchildren and cultural figures to take part in the celebration of the Andersen bicentenary at the National Library of Chile. Here, the puppet theatre ensemble "Los Titiriteros de la Pincoya" will perform "The Ugly Duckling".

Andersen Ambassador Ivan Zamorano will be present at the performance. Honorary Hans Christian Ambassador Luisa Durán and the Danish ambassador to Chile will seize this opportunity to announce forthcoming Hans Christian Andersen-related activities in Chile in 2005.

PUPPET THEATRE ENSEMBLE PERFORMS FAIRYTALES BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
The puppet theatre ensemble "Los Titiriteros de la Pincoya" will perform "The Ugly Duckling". The first performance will take place during the Hans Christian Andersen event organized in collaboration with the Royal Danish Embassy in Santiago by Honorary Hans Christian Ambassador Luisa Durán on 26 April.

In addition, the ensemble has written a 1½ hour play depicting the life of the Danish poet as revealed in his fairytales. The puppet theatre ensemble will, throughout 2005, be performing the piece at various locations in Chile.

CHILDREN'S THEATRE - PERFORMANCE OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN FAIRYTALE
The NGO-organisation "Centro Chileno - Nórdico de Literatura Infantil"  (The Chilean - Nordic Centre for Children's Literature) in Valparaiso organised, in 2004, in collaboration with a local school for underprivileged children, a theatrical presentation of the fairytale "It's Quite True!", in which all parts were played by children from the school. This project will be followed up in 2005 with a dramatisation of the fairytale "Clumsy Hans".

"Centro Chileno - Nórdico de Literatura Infantil" also took part, along with children from a school in an underprivileged area in Valparaiso, in the international exhibition of children's drawings in Rundetaarn (The Round Tower) in Copenhagen in the autumn of 2004. The exhibition was organized by "Billedskolen i Tvillingehallen", a Copenhagen visual arts school for children with special needs. At the exhibition, the Chilean pupils contributed with illustrations of the fairytales "It's Quite True!" and "Clumsy Hans".

In April and May, there will be a computer-comic magazine project at the Children's Library. Here, children will be using computers to create comic strip narratives based on the fairytale "The Little Match Girl".

Also at the library, there will also be regular readings for local children from Hans Christian Andersen's fairytales.

READINGS OF ANDERSEN'S WORKS IN SOCIALLY UNDERPRIVILEGED AREAS
The Chilean Ministry of Cultural Affairs has launched a campaign to encourage more people to read books. On the initiative of the Royal Danish Embassy in Santiago, this campaign will also include a collection of Hans Christian Andersen's fairytales to be given to each of the 2,000 readers who have been appointed by the Ministry, the so-called "Quijotes de la Lectura" (Quixotes of Reading). These readers will, during 2005, be reading aloud to audiences in underprivileged areas throughout Chile. The ministry has calculated that these readings of the works of Hans Christian Andersen will amass a total audience of 60-70,000 people. Another part of this campaign will be the printing of a poster of Andersen to be displayed in giant size in the Santiago metro in April, a month prior to the writer's actual bicentenary.

LITERARY EVENINGS IN SANTIAGO
A small exhibition on the theme of Hans Christian Andersen is to be organised in 2005 at the literary restaurant "El Mesón Nerudiano" in Santiago. Chilean actor Luis Vera will be performing readings from Andersen's fairytales and from the book "Hans Christian Andersen answers Pablo Neruda". From the end of April and for the rest of 2005, the menu at the restaurant will include a typical Danish dish.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN IN A FREE NEWSPAPER
The end of April will see the launching of a periodical for children, "Estación Bakán". The book will be printed in 40,000 copies and will be handed out free in the Santiago metro. The magazine will be a monthly publication, and from April and for the rest of 2005, it will deal with issues pertaining in various ways to the work of Hans Christian Andersen.

PAEDIATRICIANS HAND OUT FREE ANDERSEN FAIRYTALES TO PATIENTS
3 March will see the launch of a project which is the result of collaboration between the Royal Danish Embassy, a network of health centres known as Integramedica, and the Recalcine Laboratories. The project is the publication of a special edition of eight Andersen fairytales to be handed out free of charge to more than 40,000 children who are patients at the health centres. Honorary Hans Christian Ambassador Luisa Durán will attend the official launching of the project.

MEDIA EXPOSURE FOR HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
Working in collaboration with Danish companies in Denmark and in Chile, the Royal Danish Embassy will be producing a special literary supplement for Chile's largest newspaper, El Mercurio. The supplement will be printed in May 2005 and will feature articles about Denmark, Hans Christian Andersen, and Denmark as a business nation.

ARRIVAL IN CHILE OF A NEW ANDERSEN TRANSLATION
It is an important objective of the Hans Christian Andersen 2005 Foundation that former, inferior translations of Andersen's works be replaced by new, more loyal versions in all major languages. The Spanish publishing company Ediciones Cátedra (Grupo Anaya) has agreed to commission new Spanish translations of all of Andersen's fairytales, his autobiography, his poems etc. The Chilean publishers Arrayán will market the new translations in Chile, so that for the first time, Chilean readers will have an opportunity to appreciate the literary quality of Andersen's work. 

PERFORMANCE OF SYMPHONIC FAIRYTALES
The Chilean youth orchestra, "Orquestra Juvenil" is sponsored by a foundation by the name of "Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Chile". The president of this Chilean foundation is Honorary Hans Christian Andersen Ambassador Luisa Durán. The orchestra will be performing a symphony by Danish composer Fuzzy, which is based on Andersen's fairytale "The Travelling Companion". The First Performance of the symphony in Latin America will take place on 25 May in Santiago's Matucana theatre. The orchestra will be performing the symphony several times in 2005 at a variety of locations throughout Chile.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN BOOKMARK
The Chilean National Executive of Museums and Libraries will, in collaboration with the Alfaguara publishing company, be issuing 5,000 free Hans Christian Andersen ex libris.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN FILM AT THE EUROPEAN FILM FESTIVAL
Denmark's contribution to the EEC Film festival in Chile in May-June will be the movie "H.C. Andersen og den skæve skygge" (Hans Christian Andersen and the Crooked Shadow).

COMPETITION IN SCHOOLS: FAIRYTALES AND DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION
The Chilean NGO "Crearte" will be arranging an educational programme in collaboration with the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The ministry is already running a programme for the implementation of computers in teaching at Chilean schools and now, a national competition is to be organized with the participation of all state schools, a competition in which pupils will be invited to write fairytales inspired by the stories of Hans Christian Andersen. The pupils will use computer imaging techniques to illustrate their work.

ITINERANT HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN EXHIBITION IN CHILE
The exhibition has been arranged by the Odense City Museums and has as its theme the life of Hans Christian Andersen as illustrated in photographs and other documentary material. The itinerant exhibition will arrive in Chile in September-December 2005 and will be housed at the National Library of Chile. Other sites will be appointed in collaboration with the Chilean National Executive of Museums and Libraries.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN AT CHILE'S LARGEST BOOK FAIR
In collaboration with the Chilean Chamber of Books, the Camara del Libro, Hans Christian Andersen will be celebrated at Chile's international book fair in October-November, 2005. The Nordic countries will work together in creating a Nordic stand with Hans Christian Andersen as the overall theme. Various and differing Spanish publications of Andersen's works will be on display. The leader of the NGO "Centro Chileno - Nórdico de Literatura Infantil" will deliver a speech about Danish children's literature. In addition, there will be seminars, films, readings of Andersen's fairytales etc.

SPECIAL BICENTENARY EDITION OF THE FAIRYTALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
The Royal Danish Embassy in Santiago will, in collaboration with Danish businesses in Chile, fund a special edition in at least 50,000 copies of the fairytales of Hans Christian Andersen. They will be distributed to the 420 public libraries throughout the country, and will also be handed out free to children and adolescents in underprivileged areas. The fairytales have been illustrated by Danish artist Hans Voigt Steffensen.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN FAMILY DAY FOR THE DANISH COLONY
In December, the Royal Danish Embassy will invite the Danish colony and Chileans who have been in exile in Denmark to a family day. This day of celebration for Hans Christian Andersen will include readings from his fairytales, Andersen cartoons etc.

BRAILLE EDITION OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
In collaboration with the Royal Danish Embassy in Santiago, the Chilean NGO "Biblioteca Central para Ciegos" (Central Library for the Blind) will, in June, publish a volume of 5 Andersen fairytales in Braille. Every single registered sight-impaired child in Chile will receive a copy of the book in the post. (Funded by the Hans Christian Andersen ABC Foundation). 

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