Spain

Spain
Institut Europeu de la Mediterrània (IEMed)
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The European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed), founded in 1989, is a consortium comprising the Catalan Government, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation and Barcelona City Council. It incorporates civil society through its Board of Trustees and its Advisory Council formed by Mediterranean universities, companies, organisations and personalities of renowned prestige.

In accordance with the principles of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership's Barcelona Process, and today with the objectives of the Union for the Mediterranean the aim of the IEMed is to foster actions and projects which contribute to mutual understanding, Exchange and cooperation between the different Mediterranean countries, societies and cultures as well as to promote the progressive construction of a space of peace and stability, shared prosperity and dialogue between cultures and civilisations in the Mediterranean.

Adopting a clear role as a think tank specialised in Mediterranean relations based on a multidisciplinary and networking approach, the IEMed encourages analysis, understanding and cooperation through the organisation of seminars, research projects, debates, conferences and publications, in addition to a broad cultural programme.

The Foundation provides logistical and operational support to the National Network in Spain through the Network Strategic Development Scheme (NSDS). For more information, please refer to the document “NSDS Step 4” under Resources column on the right. This document highlights the main responsibilities and services to be provided by the Network Coordinator for the members until 31 August 2011.

Under Resources you can also find other important documents for the Network, such as: Network Internal Rules, Members List and Member Survey Results 2010. 

To date, the Spanish Network is composed of 124 members.

The official page of the ALF Spanish Network is http://www.iemed.org/redespanolafal (available only in Spanish and Catalan).

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Members Survey Results 201042.45 KB
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Members List185.62 KB
Network Internal Rules49.88 KB

Latest News

Hanane Oulaillah-Jazouani wins the 2011 literary contest "A Sea of Words"

Fri, 09/12/2011 - 10:29 — Spain
National Network: 
Spain
The international jury of the literary contest "A Sea of Words" has awarded the first prize for 2011 to the Moroccan Hanane Oulaillah-Jazouani, a 30-year old resident in Casablanca. Her story Le cadenas (The Padlock) tells of the vicissitudes of the 50-year old Khalid, who has been chosen as a member of a polling station team during the first democratic and fair elections in a country emerging from 50 years of dictatorship by an autocrat called Ali. This is the fourth year of "A Sea of Words", organised by the IEMed and the Anna Lindh Foundation.

The second prize was given to Ilija Djurovic, a 21-year old from Montenegro, for the story THC and LCD, while the third prize was won by Gintare Laurinaviciuté, a 17-year old Lithuanian, for Playing Democracy or A Girl from the Room Republic.

 
The awards were presented in an event at the Institut d’Estudis Catalans attended by the twenty youths who in the judgement of the jury wrote the best stories from the 165 submitted this year.
 
The young writers who attended the ceremony, including the three winners, are from Algeria, Bulgaria, Egypt, Palestine, France, Israel, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia, Turkey, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Syria, Romania, Montenegro and Morocco.
 
The fourth year of the contest focused on the theme of active citizenship (participation, democracy and citizenship) on the occasion of the European Year of Volunteering. The literary contest, organised since 2008 by the IEMed and the Anna Lindh Foundation, is aimed at writers up to 30 years old and resident in any of the 43 countries of the Euro-Mediterranean area.
 
The event was presented by Andreu Bassols (Director General of the IEMed), Maria-Àngels Roque (Director of Studies on Mediterranean Cultures at the IEMed) and Dimitrios Cavouras (representative of the Anna Lindh Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures).
 
The international jury is made up of the literary critic Elisabetta Bartuli (Italy) and the writers Najwa Barakat (Lebanon), Jamila Hassoune (Morocco), Pere Antoni Pons (Spain) and Alfredo Zucchi (Italy), winner of the 2010 contest.
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The Spanish network of the Anna Lindh Foundation votes for its new Executive Committee

Thu, 03/11/2011 - 14:04 — Spain
National Network: 
Spain

A total of 36 organizations voted for the new 5 members that will take part of the Executive Committee of the Spanish ALF network. Ten organizations presented their candidatures.

In accordance with the internal rules of the network, the main tasks of the Executive Committee:

  • To assess the HoN in the process of acceptance/removal of new members to the network,
  • To ensure the correct implementation of the approved resolutions by the assembly of the network,
  • To promote the development of common actions and projects, and
  • To assist the HoN in other matters directly related to the network.

The Executive Committee has a one-year mandate, renewable for a second year and it will be made up of the following organizations: AIPC– Pandora (Madrid), Associación civil Jarit (Valencia), Aula Universitaria del Estrecho (Algeciras), Centre UNESCO de Catalunya (Barcelona) and Fundación Promoción Social de la Cultura (Madrid).

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A Sea of Words. International Short Story Contest

Mon, 11/07/2011 - 11:04 — Spain
National Network: 
Spain

For the fourth consecutive year, the IEMed and the Anna Lindh Foundation open a call to participate in the short story contest “A Sea of Words”.

The contest aims to encourage dialogue between peoples, the exchange of knowledge and experiences between different local and international traditions. This edition, within the framework of the European Year of Volunteering, is dedicated to the topics of participation, citizenship and democracy.

The contest is aimed at producing short stories whose content is related to an increasing participation of the citizenship, and as a mean to reinforcing the activity of the civil society in order to create and consolidate dynamics of democracy shared values, liberties and rights that harden the social cohesion.

The literary production is an essential means for the expression and description of realities, ideas and emotions that can be directly transmitted to and by the youth of the entire Euro-Mediterranean region. From this point of view, the goal is to obtain literary stories –based on both reality and fiction- that deal with the different experiences on civil society participation, social cohesion, rights and liberties development and democratic values in society consolidation.

The deadline for submitting candidatures is July, 31st 2011. The contest regulations as well as the submission form are available in the following link: http://www.iemed.org/seaofwords/2011/a_introduccio.php

For more information, please write to mailto:concurso@iemed.org

12th meeting of the Spanish network of the Anna Lindh Foundation (Granada, 24/05/2011)

Tue, 31/05/2011 - 18:31 — Spain
National Network: 
Spain
12th Spanish ALF meeting

The 12th meeting of the Spanish network of the Anna Lindh Foundation took place on May 24th at the Fundación Euroárabe headquarters in Granada. The meeting was attended by around 60 participants.

The meeting was opened by Manuel Pedro Bolívar, deputy secretary of the Fundación Euroárabe, Jerónimo Nieto, president of the board of the Fundación, and Josep Ferré, executive director of the IEMed, who introduced the political agenda of the region and the process of Union for the Mediterranean.

Gianluca Solera, network coordinator at the ALF, made a brief evaluation of the first six years of the Foundation, characterized mainly by the consolidation of its structure, as an intergovernmental organization oriented to civil society and by its programmes (ALF Forum, Intercultural Trends Report, network support programme and calls for proposals). Mr Solera made a brief introduction to the ALF accounts and the prospects for the new phase, which will undoubtedly be characterized by a cut in contributions from Member States. As for the new Foundation strategy for years 2012-2014, he explained the components of a document approved by the Board of Governors in October 2010 which detailed the priority areas, strategic objectives and action instruments. His speech ended with the presentation of the conclusions of the survey carried out by the FAL among all its members at the end of 2010, specifically among the Spanish participants.

The meeting continued with the reading of the conclusions by the discussants of the four working groups of the seminar "Building Bridges of Dialogue on the Strait". The aim was to present to network the discussions held with Moroccan counterparts and to collect contributions from the rest of Spanish participants in order to enrich the conclusions and prepare the final publication of the document. During the debate, which was very participative, members of the Spanish network gave their opinions and ideas for a project - future joint action of both networks for 2012. Some of the most recurrent issues were the need to focus on a young audience, the sustainability of the actions action beyond the calendar year that the ALF subsidizes the visibility and the treatment regarding north-south mobility, citizenship, human rights and ecology.

Pilar Aranda, executive secretary of the Fundación Euroárabe, closed the event thanking the IEMed for choosing Granada as the venue for this 12th meeting and invited attendees to visit the exhibition "Biodiversity and Oasis", curated by Antonio Ortega and Ana Molina.

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The Spanish and Moroccan networks of the Anna Lindh Foundation met in Tangiers to promote dialogue between both countries

Mon, 02/05/2011 - 13:46 — Spain
National Network: 
Spain

The Spanish and Moroccan networks of the Anna Lindh Foundation (ALF) have established the bases for a shared work programme to promote intercultural dialogue. To debate this work programme, the seminar “Constructing Bridges of Dialogue on the Strait” was held in Tangiers from 15th to 17th April, attended by around eighty representatives of civil society organisations from the two countries.

This is the first occasion that two networks of the Foundation from the North and South of the Mediterranean have shown their willingness to work in a coordinated way on the definition of a strategy and an action programme on intercultural dialogue.

In the meeting, participants began to define the joint work programme, which will be structured around the ALF’s four fields of action: culture and creativity; education and intercultural learning; regionalisation, citizenship and public space; and immigration, the media and public opinion.

Among the most notable proposals agreed are the creation of an area of free cultural exchange, which finally puts an end to the problems of South-North mobility suffered by cultural operators; the fight against stereotypes held by much of the Spanish population about the Arab and Muslim world, especially Morocco, through coordinated work with primary and secondary schools; fostering cooperation and agreement among organisations of both networks and local and regional administration, especially in this period of political decentralisation currently underway in Morocco; and the organisation of a series of meetings and debates between organisations of the two networks and representatives of the media that can create public opinion and fight against stereotypes.

The seminar also focused on the debates over the new ALF strategy for the period 2012-2014, which will consider the democratising movements shaking the southern Mediterranean today. The ALF is endeavouring to revitalise Euro-Mediterranean cooperation and respond to the demands of Euro-Mediterranean civil society with recent initiatives such as “Believe in Dialogue, Act for Citizenship”.

The meeting also served to highlight some good practices developed by organisations from both networks, such as the project of the Strait Classroom shared by the universities of Cadiz and Tangiers, the Cornisa network for coordination of development cooperation between Catalonia and Morocco or the efforts to promote Moroccan music in Spain by the cultural association La Fábrica de Ideas.