Noticias del Portal de la Cultura de América Latina y el Caribe

UNESCO and EU present the Transcultura programme to Caribbean Ambassadors to Cuba

7 October 2022/ UNESCO Havana

On 6 October 2022, the Director of the UNESCO Regional Office for Culture in Latin America and the Caribbean, Anne Lemaistre, and the Ambassador of the European Union to Cuba, Isabel Brilhante Pedrosa, held a meeting with ambassadors and representatives in Cuba of nine Caribbean States, to present the progress and upcoming activities of the programme Transcultura: Integrating Cuba, the Caribbean and the European Union through Culture and Creativity, targeting those countries.

Transcultura, which is funded by the European Union, is UNESCO's largest programme in the Latin American and Caribbean region and seeks to harness the Caribbean’s rich cultural diversity to become a driver for sustainable development through exchange and cooperation in the region and with the European Union.

"With the generous support of the European Union, Transcultura aims to unleash the productive forces of the cultural and creative industries in the Caribbean. The programme represents not only one of UNESCO’s most intersectoral initiatives, touching multiple areas within the mandate of UNESCO (culture, education and social and human sciences), but it also addresses strategic cross-cutting themes (gender, human rights and Small Islands Development States) which are key UNESCO priorities." Anne Lemaistre

Transcultura, which focuses on youth as its primary target group, is structured around two main lines of actions, the first being the professionalization of the cultural sector in the Caribbean, and the second, the creation of opportunities for young cultural professionals, through entrepreneurship, cultural exchange and the promotion of sustainable cultural tourism.

During the presentation, the Caribbean ambassadors learned that, as at the beginning of October 2022, the programme had trained 500 Caribbean professionals in areas related to the cultural and creative industries and cultural entrepreneurship and that more than 800 Caribbean nationals had participated in cultural exchange activities of the programme.

With the involvement of 17 Caribbean countries, Member States of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Caribbean Community (CARIFORUM) and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) (Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago), from three different linguistic areas (Spanish, English and French), the Transcultura programme is implemented by the UNESCO Regional Office for Culture in Latin America and the Caribbean, based in Havana (Cuba), in cooperation with the UNESCO Office for the Caribbean, based in Kingston (Jamaica) and the UNESCO Office in Haiti.