July 13, 2011

“Expressions of Diversity and Sustainable Livelihoods” Festival in Colombia

Our partner organization in Colombia, Fundaexpresión, announces their Second Rural - Urban Dialogue Festival, which will take place in Bucaramanga, Colombia, from November 18-20, 2011.

The Rural - Urban Dialogue Festival is an innovative experience in Colombia, which aims to reclaim cultural expression as a means to promote dialogue and understanding between rural and urban people, to encourage solidarity and self-affirmation and to promote sustainable livelihood changes.

Rural culture as a legacy originates locally, because it needs context in which to thrive: the context of people, agriculture, landscape, forests and the rivers that shape it. In this sense, cultural patrimony and natural patrimony are intertwined. Peasant, fisher-folk, afro-descendent and indigenous peoples are not only harvesters of basic foods, but when given the opportunity, rural people are bountiful in beauty, mythology and traditional wisdom.

Although formal education and mass media have isolated the cultural expression of urban society, many urban groups, artists, teachers and social movements are developing initiatives to defend cultural values and promote alternative livelihoods in urban areas inflicted by violence, discrimination and malnutrition.

"We seek to interconnect rural and urban communities who embrace the principles of sustainable societies. Moreover, with imposing development models that affect both populations (monocrops, agribusiness, mining industries, consumerism, climate change…), these scenarios for collective memory are vital for cultural understanding between rural and urban people."

During October 2010, the First Rural - Urban Dialogue Festival brought together 56 community organizations from 35 regions of Colombia, and 5 international delegations (Holland, Sweden, México, Venezuela and Cuba). This year’s Festival continues this fruitful dialogue with a diversity of social groups and institutions:

• Peasants, fisher-folk, afro-descendent and indigenous peoples
• Youth, women, urban neighbourhoods, students and teachers
• Artists, cultural activists and musicians
• Community media organizations (radio, newspapers and TV)
• Universities, local governments and public authorities
  
  

  The Festival is also developed in the context of different civil-society campaigns -food sovereignty, climate justice, defence of water, forests and biodiversity-, women’s networks and the SSNC Green Week in Sweden, to highlight the synergy between local and global actions.
  Agenda and Topics for the Festival in 2011: "We have demonstrated how culture and intercultural dialogue can empower both rural and urban people." This Festival seeks to bring together social and community experiences within the following topics:

• Intercultural education and artistic expression
• Sustainable habitat and livelihoods
• Environmental and cultural patrimony
• Food sovereignty and local markets
  
  Fundaexpresión invites you to participate and get involved in the Second Rural - Urban Dialogue Festival and the preparatory events during 2011. "We are also interested in exchanging experiences on diversity and sustainable livelihoods.
  Please contact us to participate or for more information."  

  See the NEW video-clip for the II Festival in 2011