>> Workshops for its implementation
The ASfE manual “Cities and Regions. Their cultural responsibility for Europe and how they can fulfil it” has been tested and assessed in two workshops by practitioners from municipalities and regional authorities.
The manual delivers ideas, strategies and concrete methods to implement the authentic responsibility of cities and regions for the making of a citizens’ Europe by harnessing Europe's cultural riches available under their local and regional responsibility. This special cultural responsibility makes cities and regions European players. So far, thanks to the European Parliament and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, there are so far three versions of the manual available, in German, in English and in Portuguese.
In January 2010 representatives of more than a dozen German cities, different in size and character, met in Berlin under the auspices of the Federal Agency for Civic Education. They confirmed the manual’s practical viability and they agreed to promote it in their professional sphere and to contribute to its further amendment.
The city of Leipzig is likely to organize a next workshop in Germany in an enlarged format.
In April 2010, the ASfE office with the Setepés agency in Porto organized another Cities & Regions workshop with the municipality of Guimarães, European Capital of Culture 2012. Three neighbouring cities were invited as well as representatives of the municipality of Santiago de Compostela (Spain), who gave the event a cross-border approach. The agenda focussed on two fields of cultural achievements highlighted in the manual: “Outstanding Cultural Performance” and “Conversion and Urban Renewal”. An intriguing part of the debate was the question of a sustainable legacy of Guimarães as a European Capital of Culture to the rest of Europe and the region. It was agreed upon to dwell on this aspect in the follow-up work.
More ASfE Cities & Regions workshops will follow in Germany, Portugal and other countries.
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