Coordinators from member cities and from national and regional networks took part in the annual meeting of the international Intercultural Cities (ICC) network, hosted this year by Bilbao (Basque Country, Spain) on 14–15 November 2023. Among the participants were representatives of Wrocław from the Wrocław Centre for Social Development.
The aim of the annual meeting of ICC coordinators is to review the activities and achievements of the past year, to present and discuss challenges and solutions, and to discuss the work programme for the coming year, 2024. On the first day, the international members heard about the priorities of the ICC Advisory Group and the activities proposed for its 2023–25 term of office.
On the first day of the meeting, after the strategic session, we took part in a tour of the Bilbao districts of San Francisco, Bilbao La Vieja and Zabala as part of the DIVERSITOURS project, which earlier this year won the Eurocities Award 2023 in the category “From global human mobility to cohesive local communities”. The essence of the project is that the tour passes through places of historical and social importance to Bilbao’s migrant communities, and the guides are people from different countries and cultures – Carmen, Esther, Malik and George. The tour route and the entire project were developed by local residents with the support of the Koop SF 34 association, which supports entrepreneurship among people who have come to Bilbao.
On the second day of the meeting, we had the opportunity to share our impressions of Diversitours and consider whether this type of project could be replicated in other cities of the network. We then listened to a presentation on Bilbao’s activities, including programmes supporting migrant women and research conducted since 2003 by the Basque Immigration Observatory (Ikuspegi) on topics such as the attitudes and opinions of Basques towards migration.
It is worth mentioning that in Wrocław we already had the opportunity to hear about Bilbao’s activities in 2022, when during Dialogopolis’22 – Days of Dialogue and Intercultural Education an international panel discussion was held presenting the idea of the ICC and cities’ experiences of taking part in the programme, with the participation of Claudia Laredo from Bilbao City Council.
The meeting ended with a session on organising intercultural competence training and good practices in developing training for local government employees. Representatives from countries including Portugal, Canada, Italy and Ukraine shared their experiences.
We would like to thank the ICC Secretariat and the city of Bilbao for an inspiring programme and meeting.
The Intercultural Cities Programme (ICC) is a joint initiative of the Council of Europe and the European Commission, launched during the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008. It aims to support local authorities in developing and implementing intercultural integration policies. Wrocław has been a member of the ICC network since 2021. Find out more about the programme here.
