A total of 3,890 young people from Cantabria have applied for the Young Cultural Voucher in the second edition of this program of the Ministry of Culture and Sport of the Government of Spain, which represents 66.46% of the total of 5,853 potential beneficiaries in the Autonomous Community.
In Spain as a whole, a total of 326,579 young people have applied for the Young Cultural Bonus, about 50,000 more than in the first edition, reaching 65.14 percent of the potential beneficiaries, which are young people who have reached or will reach 18 years of age in 2023.
These are two out of three young people born in 2005, namely 65.58% of the estimated population of that age, a total of 501,652 people, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
The figure exceeds by 48,985 the total number of beneficiaries of the previous edition, which amounted to 277,594. Between the first two editions, the 600,000 young beneficiaries of the program are already reached, which allows them to enjoy an aid of 400 euros to invest in cultural products.
In this second edition, all registrations have been processed digitally, through the website www.bonoculturajoven.gob.esbetween 13 June and 31 October, including the extension of one month with the aim of encouraging and facilitating the maximum participation of young people in the programme.
After being registered and signed, each of these applications is reviewed and subjected to the process of individualized control of subsidies of the General Administration of the State, so that the final number of beneficiaries could suffer some variation.
The public company Correos, the entity in charge of the banking support of the Young Cultural Bonus, already began on September 14 the sending of virtual and physical cards to the young beneficiaries. From that moment, the cards are being issued progressively until they reach the total of bonuses granted.
Once the Young Cultural Bonus is activated, the beneficiaries have one year to make use of the card from the date of concession. The application and the website of the Young Cultural Voucher shows, in a personalized way, the remaining time that each young person has to enjoy the Voucher, as well as their remaining balance in each of the categories in which it is distributed:
► 100 euros for physical products, for example, books, press or disks.
► 100 euros for digital products: digital press, podcast or online video games.
► 200 euros for performing arts: theatre, opera, cinema, dance, museums...
For its part, more than 3,000 cultural companies already offer their services and products through the program that the Ministry of Culture and Sport launched in 2022. As of September 30, 1,847,779 operations worth 59.4 million euros had been carried out by the beneficiaries of the Young Cultural Bonus of the first edition. The application period for companies and cultural entities remains open.
The objectives of this initiative that the Government of Spain has consolidated in its General State Budgets are, on the one hand, to promote the loyalty of young people as a public and cultural consumer; and, on the other, to offer additional support to the cultural sector in its recovery, which in this second edition would benefit with additional income of 130 million euros.