IEMED - Institut Europeu de la Mediterrània

2008 has been selected by the EU as European Year of Intercultural Dialogue

Cultural diversity is the result of choices and actions by individuals who recognise themselves as part of a group or who subscribe to community or religious traditions. From this point of view, economic, social and political relations between groups, communities or nations give intercultural dialogue a priority position. There is no relationship without mutual understanding.

La The European Union recognises the need to call on its citizens to play a role in the management of cultural diversities, constantly enriched by the changes and alterations brought by the globalisation process.

In this context, 2008 has been selected by the EU as European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. With this action, the European Union seeks to promote intercultural dialogue as a process in which all the people who live in or have relations with the EU can improve their mutual knowledge in order to live in a more open, but also more complex, cultural environment; where different cultural identities and religions coexist, both between different states and within each state.

According to the EU proposals, the Year of Intercultural Dialogue seeks to strengthen and prioritise a more structured cultural exchange to involve its citizens – and particularly the young – in the management of the complexities of our socio-political reality. For these reasons, the EU recognises its role to inspire the people who live in or have relations with the EU to come into direct contact with other cultures, both in their own country and abroad, and in this way contribute to tolerance and mutual respect, which are prior conditions for intercultural dialogue.

Within this framework, and with the same objectives, the Anna Lindh Foundation has launched the campaign 1001 Actions for Intercultural Dialogue, which involves the encouragement of any type of action aimed at the development of contact between communities and knowledge of the other in the Euro-Mediterranean area. Within the framework of its current strategy, based on the effort to strengthen its networks, the Foundation has aimed this project at the mobilisation of its affiliates and members through the national networks, with the objective of developing a range of different actions for the promotion of intercultural dialogue.

The project “A Sea of Words” is located within the framework of the 1001 Actions for Intercultural Dialogue with the intention of contributing to fostering dialogue between cultures, exchange of knowledge and experiences between different local and national traditions. The project is aimed at the exploration of new approaches in matters of intercultural dialogue that can lead towards an opening of our social environment, contributing to fostering a more dynamic and varied society in which young people, the future generation, can play an important role in the learning process implicit in the mutual understanding of different cultures which live together in the same space made up by the Euro-Mediterranean region.