4th Workshop in Blagoevgrad (Bulgaria)

The 4th Workshop of Scultbord (Spreading Culture on Border Regions), a project sponsored by Grundtvig program, takes place in Blagoevgrad (Bulgaria) between 2nd and 5th of May 2012.

3rd Workshop in Mérida (Spain). Report (5 of 5)

On Friday 28^th October the workshop continued at the National Museum of Roman Art in Mérida. The city was the capital of a roman province called Lusitania and the land which today is Portugal belonged to that province. The last conference of the workshop entitled Lusitania, a common Roman past of Spain and Portugal, was pronounced by the director of the Museum, Mr. José María Álvarez. He talked about the close relationships between the Museum and Portugal, especially the collaborations with the National Museum of Archaeology in Lisbon and the Monographic Museum of Conimbriga (Coimbra). It exists a way of cooperation which is permanently opened, sharing experiences and collaborating in archaeological investigations. As a result, there are several books published and compiled in a collection called Studia Lusitana, where there are a very important number of participants from Portugal and texts written in Portuguese.

The workshop continued with a technical meeting to deal questions of the SCULTBORD Project as dissemination, use of the blog and other communication tools and to fix the dates of the following workshops in Bulgaria (April-May 2012) and Hungary (June 2012).

As the SCULTBORD has to prepare a Manual of Best Practises, the Cross border Initiatives Office of the Regional Government of Extremadura prepared some templates with examples of different activities organized in the region to spread the Portuguese culture among adult population.

3rd Workshop in Mérida (Spain). Report (4 of 5)

Ms. Marta Maia, who was making a postgraduate study in translation and multilingual communication (University of Porto), had spent eight months of that Master at the Cross border Initiatives Office of the Regional Government of Extremadura. She pronounced the fourth conference of the workshop, entitled Portugal in the cultural policy of Extremadura. She talked about her different experiences studying and working in several European countries, and mentioned the prejudices she had about Spain and Spanish people. Spain and Portugal have shared a frontier, but the size of both countries with common History, as United Kingdom and Ireland for example, makes the big country to ignore the small one. She had the opportunity of working in Spain, in a border region, at the institution which rules everything related to Portugal and cross border cooperation. The old image has changed and this region is showing a real interest for Portugal. In fact there are many people interested in Portuguese culture and thousands of people learning the language. She also explained the role of Portugal in the cultural policies carried out by the Regional Government of Extremadura. In short, it can be said that Portuguese culture has become a very important branch of the cultural policies of Extremadura in the last 20 years.

Ms. Pruden Gutiérrez, teacher of Didactics at the University of Extremadura, pronounced the fifth conference of the workshop. In her speech entitled Coming back to school: Senior University, she explained one of the most successful projects dealing with lifelong learning activities, which has received the most important award given in the region (The Medal of Extremadura).

In her speech Ms. Gutiérrez stated that population over 65 years has been growing and will continue in the current century. The old age population, until recent times, had been studied from a negative point of view, but today there are many institutions and sciences studying seriously this growing population.

Culture, knowledge and lifelong learning are elements that cannot be far from elderly people and the University has to play a very important role. It is necessary to overcome old conceptions that identify university only with teaching official studies.

With this programme the University of Extremadura aims to give education to a higher number of citizens with a main purpose: satisfying wishes to learn just for pleasure and enjoying the leisure training. It is a way to widespread culture as a source for cohesion, solidarity and democracy.

The program has been developed in seven different locations in Extremadura, with more than 4000 students and more than 150 teachers participating since it began in 1998. Among the activities offered to the students every course, Portuguese Language and Culture has been one of the most successful workshops in the last years.

3rd Workshop in Mérida (Spain). Report (3 of 5)

Mr. Javier Figueiredo pronounced the third conference of the workshop, which was a presentation of a project organized and financed by the Cross border Initiative Office. Ágora, the peninsular debate began in the year 2000 and its main objective was to convert Extremadura in an annual meeting point with the appropriate climate to talk freely about the issues which worry us or which enrich us as Portuguese and Spaniards, and, at the same time, eliminate the misunderstandings, stereotypes and psychological barriers that have separated us for years. Organised by the Extremadura Autonomous Government and sponsored by the Caja de Badajoz and Caja de Extremadura savings banks, the general scheme of Ágora is structured in four parts: Academy, Arena, Scene and Chronicle.

Ágora Academy is a programme consisting of three specialised courses, each devoted to a single theme and lasting one or two days. The courses deal with points of interest or of current importance for both countries and are intended for experts, professionals or students of the area being dealt with who have formally enrolled, and include the participation of prestigious Spanish and Portuguese speakers. Two specialists, one Spanish and one Portuguese, are in charge of the organisation of each course and select the speakers and the participants.

Ágora Arena is a conference, debate or round table open to the general public dealing with a current issue or a polemic topic in Spanish-Portuguese relations.

Ágora Scene is the name given to the cultural, artistic or leisure activities offered parallel to the courses in public areas of the host city (drama, exhibitions, music acts, etc.). It is a question of showing the work of Portuguese creators expressing the world of relationships, and offering a vision of the other social and cultural reality.

The Cross-border Initiatives Office edits an annual Chronicle in which specialists on the issues dealt with produce a light summary of the content of the courses and other parts of Ágora and reflect the atmosphere of the events.

Ágora, the peninsular debate was held between 2000 and 2010, and has become an essential encounter for all those who are interested in relations between Spain and Portugal. Throughout the eleven editions numerous Spanish and Portuguese personalities have formed part of Ágora and have offered their vision of the different issues the courses have touched on. The Carnation Revolution in Portugal, economic relations between Spain and Portugal, the problem of forest fires on the Iberian Peninsula or the presence of Spain and Portugal in the European Union were some of the issues that have been analysed at the Ágora Academy conferences.

Teachers, journalists, artists, politicians and scholars have contributed to strengthening the forum and enriching the relationship between the two countries, and even Prime Ministers as Mário Soares, Felipe González or Pedro Passos Coelho have participated.

The debates of Ágora Arena issues such as bullfighting in Portugal, the different sense of humour, junk TV or the perception of homosexuality in Spain and Portugal have been debated on, all of which have aroused great interest among the audience.

In Ágora Scene, numerous artistic and leisure events have taken place on various stages in Cáceres, Badajoz and Mérida year after year which convert these Extremaduran cities in windows on Portuguese society. This section includes Portuguese cinema cycles, theatre, music acts, exhibitions, talks given by writers, Portuguese book weeks, poetry recitals, Portuguese gastronomy, etc.

In short, a suggestive and varied programme which has been very well received and has converted Ágora, the Peninsular Debate in a forum for dialogue in the framework of Spanish-Portuguese relations.

3rd Workshop in Mérida (Spain). Report (2 of 5)

The second conference of the workshop, Learning the Language of our Neighbours was delivered by Ms. Lígia Borges, teacher at the Official School of Languages in the town of Montijo (Extremadura, Spain). She reported her experience after having been working for four years as the responsible of Camões Institute in the region, which is the responsible official institution for the dissemination of Portuguese language and culture around the world, similar as British Council, Instituto Cervantes, Goethe-Institut, Istituto Dante Alighieri or Alliance Française.

In her speech Ms. Borges talked about how teaching Portuguese started in Extremadura at the 80’s, when it was created a Department of Portuguese Language at University to form teachers. She explained the different possibilities existing in Extremadura for adult education. One of the most important institutions devoted to teach adult people are the Popular Universities, giving informal education about different subjects to adult population. But the growth of the number of students has appeared in formal education through the Official School of Languages. There are nine of these public schools in the region, where Portuguese is the second language in number of students, more than other languages as French, German or Italian. No other Spanish region has developed a policy in order to encourage population to learn Portuguese language, even with an advertisement campaign on TV, radio, newspapers and at bus-stops: “Learn Portuguese. It will open many doors for you”. Nowadays having knowledge of Portuguese language has become a very important point for those trying to get a job or to get a promotion. Many adverts for different jobs and activities include specific references. Apart from the Schools of Languages, the courses financed by the Cross border Initiatives Office (more than 1200 courses since 1996) have been fundamental to give the opportunity to adult population in small villages to learn the language of the neighbours.

Ms. Borges talked about the cultural differences between Portugal and Spain. Although both countries have similar languages, sometimes there are a lot of misunderstandings due to false friends and other aspects of formality and costumes.

3rd Workshop in Mérida (Spain). Report (1 of 5)

After the first workshop in Évora (Portugal) and the second one in Kavala (Greece), the third workshop of the Grundtvig – Lifelong Learning project Scultbord took place in Mérida on 27^th and 28^thOctober 2011. The first session of the workshop was held at the Regional Parliament of Extremadura and it was structured to show the ways the regional Government of Extremadura and other institutions have used to spread the Portuguese culture in this Spanish region.

The Technical Secretary for External Affairs of the Regional Government of Extremadura, Ms. Maria Isabel Nieto, in her speech at inauguration of the workshop stated that adult learning is a vital component of lifelong learning. It is fundamental to note the importance of lifelong learning not only for competitiveness and employability, but also for social inclusion, active citizenship and personal development.

The President of the Parliament of Extremadura, Mr. Fernando Manzano, welcomed the participants, showed the interest of the Institution in the project and compromised to transmit the conclusions of the workshop to all the groups represented in the Parliament.

The first conference of the workshop was delivered by Ms. Montaña Hernández, head of the Cross-border Initiative Office (Regional Government of Extremadura) since 2002. In her speech, Ms. Hernández tried to explain the progress of cross border cooperation in Extremadura and the importance of culture in all this process. Since the Cross-border Office was created in 1993, this department has been working on trying to know better their neighbour country and encouraging people to know their neighbours. “The reason for that is the conviction that a better knowledge of our neighbour country, its language and its culture, will improve our relations not only at a social or cultural level but it will also help to improve our economical development”.

Cross border ties between Extremadura, Alentejo and Central Portugal were initiated at the beginning of the 90’s. They were institutionalized as a result of the “Protocols of Cross Border Cooperation” endorsed by the Extremaduran Regional Government (Junta de Extremadura) and the CCDR Alentejo, in 1992, and by the Extremaduran regional government (Junta de Extremadura) and the CCDR Central Portugal, in 1994. Starting practically from scratch, a productive first stage of cooperation began at that time. Following an initial phase of getting to know each other, the first projects and results began to take shape more recently under the protection of the successive programs INTERREG and POCTEP (Operative Program of Spanish-Portuguese cross border cooperation).

After almost two decades, the territory occupied by the three regions, with its 428 kilometres of common border, has been transformed into a territory with new perspectives and possibilities in which cross border cooperation has become an important asset for its development. An enormous amount of initiatives and common projects have emerged. Many of them focused on adult population by promoting their skills and education. The number of Spaniards studying the Portuguese language and vice versa, has increased exponentially in recent years, as has the presence of creators and artists from both sides of the border in museums and cultural festivals in the three regions. It can be said that Portugal has become part of Extremadura’s cultural landscape.

At the same time, terms “Iberian” or “peninsular” have been incorporated into a large number of conferences and numerous trade fair competitions held on both sides of the border. And there are more than 300 studies and publications related to Portugal edited in Extremadura.

The positive results, as well as the interest shown by the three regions in broadening their cooperation, led to the signing of a single cooperation agreement and the fusion of the two former Work Communities in one, with the aim of rationalizing the organizational structures of our neighbourhood relationship.

The signing of this agreement facilitated the creation of the Euroregion Alentejo-Centre-Extremadura (EUROACE) and the beginning of a new stage in the cooperation between the three regions.

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