“Freedom “- Celia, Spain
“Democracy”- Helena, Ucraine
“Going in Erasmus was the best experience I had so far so, I will say studying abroad is a great oportunity.”- Simonne, Italy
“Solidarity and togetherness,” – Madalina, Romania
“Traveling easy, fast and cheap.”- Mathe, Hungary
“Peace and Democracy.” – Luane, Malta
“Diversity.”- Delia, Cyprus
“Solidarity and equality” – Marie, Belgium
“Equality and freedom”- Herta, Austria.
“Rights and multiculturalism”.- Andreeas, Bulgaria.
“Democracy, equality and solidarity”.- Farthein, Sweeden
“Which is the first value you automatically connect with E.U.Ɂ” I asked some of my friends from different countries almost one week ago and those are their answers. And now is my turn. Since the begining of Octobe as part of an ESC Project I started to unconciously focuss more on this topic and it also became a curiosity.
The first word that comes in mind when I say European Union is, openness. Openness understood as freedom, rights, equality, or diversity. And since I say diversity the first that comes in mind is culture and cultural diversity. So, how is cultural diversity related with the others dimentions of E.U? How does it influence E.U?
Widely understood the cultural diversity is the culture variety and the cultural diffrences that exist in the world, in a society or an institution and the inclusion of its representatives.
And according to 2019-2022- work plan for culture established by European Coremission, the culture has an intrinsic value, it contributes to sustainable, social and economical developement, cultural and linguistic diversity is a key asset for European Union and its protection and promotion is central to cultural policy at an european level. Moreover, the E.U. Comission selects the following priorities in view to their contribution to cultural diversity : sustenability in cultural heritage, cohesion and well-being, support for artists and creative proffessionals and european content, gender equality, international cultural relation. Furthermore, special attention should be paid to synergies between the priorities.
Being a source of job creation and contributing to both qality of life for E.U citizens and growth in Europe the cultural sector is an excellent tool for supporting social inclusion and cultural diversity. Therefore in order to support and increase the visibility of Europe’s culture and audiovisual sectors, European Commission created a variety of intiatives, actions and prizes. Such an exemple would be „Creative Europe”- the project which rewards achievement, highlits excellence and raises awareness in domains like architecture, music and film, heritages, literature and culture. All those fields build the cultural diversity that we become more aware of through such initiatives.
Concretly, having European Capitals of culture, or different prizes for architecture, literature or heritages or events promoting music and films on an european level- means encourageing cultural diversity.
I think that there is no better context than an E.S.C. project to experience cultural diversity. As a part of a multicultural team- built on gender based criteria- who lives together for a long time, exchangeing books, watching movies and disscusing them after, visiting the hosting country or simply sharing habits and customes specific for our own cultur and talking in another language than our mother tongues- all of those are just a part of our routine and simple actions that could spread the (cultural) diversity as a value , I am happy to explore this dimesion of E.U. on a daily basis