Centre UNESCO de Catalunya
Aim
Spread the ideals, documents and activities of UNESCO in the area of Catalan culture and bring to UNESCO the Catalan cultural community's collaboration in those fields for which UNESCO has competence, that is in education, science, culture, and communication; provide information and distribute documents relative to other international governmental and nongovernmental organisations with the object of contributing to international peace and coexistence.
History
In 1984 when the UNESCO Centre was established, Catalonia's international relations were not yet considered a priority neither by the Catalan Government nor Catalan civil society. The UNESCO Centre aimed to contribute to opening up Catalan culture and language areas to international life and to be as present as possible in UNESCO. The UNESCO Centre of Catalonia began modestly but grew until becoming a new international model of organisations that have official relations before UNESCO. The Catalan experience has been observed and copied by different countries, due the Centre's ability to develop UNESCO's programmes as part of a joint initiative between Paris and Barcelona. Today, Catalonia's international relations and presence in organisations belonging to the United Nations family are a priority for the Catalan Government and Catalan civil society. The Centre is now, after a restructuring plan, resuming the task of spreading UNESCO's mandated fields and activities and ensuring the participation of Catalan society in Education, Culture, Science, and Peace.
IRD Activities
- Consultancy
Unescocat’s Consultancy was created in order to develop and apply ideas and projects designed by the different departments of the UNESCO Centre at a local, grassroots level. The Consultancy’s technical experts help organisations and local areas prevent and intervene in conflict situations, and they provide advisory services on managing diversity. The objectives of the Consultancy are to provide advisory services on managing diversity in the public arena, identify needs and offer possible solutions to local councils on the different action areas of the different departments at Unescocat, promoting ways to improve living together and social cohesion in local areas with cultural and religious diversity. Unescocat’s Consultancy currently has agreements in place on managing religious diversity and promoting interreligious dialogue with local councils in Barcelona (through the management of Barcelona City Council’s Office of Religious Affairs), Lleida, Badalona, the Consorci Badalona Sud, Sant Adrià de Besòs, Sabadell, Salt, Cunit and Blanes
- Learning Centre
The Learning Centre is a training centre focused on UNESCO areas which organizes and gives visibility to the training work that Unescocat’s professionals have been providing over the years, and offers training aimed at building practical, independent, critical thought. The Learning Centre offers training for professionals so that they can transmit UNESCO values. It disseminates UNESCO values to the general public through training activities which include elements for reflection and proposals for debate to encourage social transformation. It provides advice to professionals, groups, public and private organisations on UNESCO areas and designs customised training, innovates in terms of methodology and activities to promote action-focused training, exchanges experience and knowledge with other institutions, and affirms its international dimension by involving students and trainers from other countries and with the future incorporation of online training. The Learning Centre also coordinates internal training sessions for professionals in the Centre, on project development, for example, and informative sessions on topics of interest, such as the world financial system and ethical banking, provided by Triodos Bank, the regulation of places of worship, aimed at members of the Department of Diversity and Interreligious Dialogue, and on municipal development in Lebanon.
Main Focus Countries of Activities
Blanes, Spain - Cunit, Spain - Lleida, Spain - Sabadell, Spain - Salt, Spain - Sant Adrià de Besòs, Spain - Vilafranca del Penedès, Spain - Spain