The seventh edition of the Entrepreneur Programme has been inaugurated today in Cáceres. This pioneering leadership and business management training programme for the Extremadur-an tobacco community is sponsored by Philip Morris Spain in collaboration with the University of Extremadura (UEx) and the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation, among other institutions.

The presentation session of this INNOVA Edition, which has taken place at the Faculty of Business, Finance and Tourism in Cáceres, was attended by the Dean of the Faculty, José Luis Coca; the Director-General of Vocational Training and University of the Regional Government of Extremadura, Juan José Maldonado; Ainhoa Capdevila, the Philip Morris Spain Communication and CSR manager, and Ricardo Hernández Mogollón, the Executive Director of the Entrepreneur Programme.

A group of 18 young people from the tobacco industry with concerns and desires of innovating in rural areas has been selected to participate in this new edition. According to Dionisio Serrano, a student of this new edition, “Participating in this Entrepreneur Programme is an opportunity to look towards the future of the sector. The inclusion of successful cases in this new edition will give us the momentum that any grower with the urge to innovate and grow needs.” The new students took up the torch of the students participating in the last edition, who were also present and who received an academic title certifying their participation in the Entrepreneur Programme.

After six editions, Philip Morris has once again counted on the team from the University of Extremadura (UEx), led by Ricardo Mogollón and Antonio Fernández Portillo, co-directors of the INNOVA edition. They have developed a programme with more advanced contents on this occasion and with a more flexible and dynamic format, based on the analysis of 25 successful cases of Spanish regions, such as La Rioja, the Canary Islands or Extremadura itself, as well as Portugal. These successful cases will give way to reflection and debate on behalf of the students with their teachers and with the key actor themselves and will be the basis of a methodology which content will pivot on axes such as open and hybrid innovation, precision farming 4.0, and digital economy business models, among others.

“In Philip Morris Spain we are committed to Extremadura and to tobacco of the 21st century. With initiatives such as the Entrepreneur Programme our aim is to generate inspiration, reflection and, above all, an innovative view in order to move forward together towards the future of the sector”, added Ainhoa Capdevila, the Philip Morris Spain Communication and CSR manager.

According to more than 100 students that have already attended past editions of the programme, this experience has marked a turning point in their personal as well as in their professional lives, allowing them to broaden their views as cultivators and to better understand their role within the value chain in a highly complex milieu that is in constant change.

According to Ricardo Hernández, one of the directors of this INNOVA edition of the Entrepreneur Programme who has talked about “Entrepreneurial Capacities-Opportunities, Values, and Attitudes” in the opening session, “Many of the students who have participated in past editions and who are now part of the INNOVA edition will now use the acquired knowledge and move on to reflection. The successful case format and the possibility to interact with the key actors is an ideal formula to make this possible”.
Training sessions will begin in December and will last until the end of February. One of the most important innovations is that for the first time, part of the training sessions will be taught at the University Campus of Cáceres, and another part of the training programme will take place at the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation’s headquarters, at the Royal Monastery of Yuste.

The European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation and the Agency for International Development Cooperation (AEXCID), have organised the session “Integration Answers Facing the Migratory-Economic Crises”.

During the opening session, the director of the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation, Juan Carlos Moreno, pointed out that the process of European integration, among its achievements, “has been able to eliminate European internal borders, but the external ones remain and it has become impossible to go beyond them”. He claimed that our southern frontier, the Mediterranean, sometimes seems to be “the Dead Sea or the Sea of the Dead, because of the many people that perish in their attempt to reach Europe”.

Moreno pointed out that the European Union “makes up 7% of the world population, but its social expense is 50% of the world total and that is why many wish to come”, in spite of Europe’s shielding form their arrival. He has underlined that, “most Europeans emotionally accept to receive refugees, but politically this is not the case, because it’s a matter of national competence and we continue with the bloody-mindedness to not take in refugees nor immigrants”.

The director concluded bystressing the European and Ibero-American Academyof Yuste Foundation’s commitment to be a “channel for analysis and reflection; an open forum to present views and confront ideas in order to reach solutions, where possible”.

This session, in the framework of the Campus Yuste programme, offers different approaches and strategies. The speakers included Tomás Calvo Buezas, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology of the Complutense University of Madrid, and founder of the Migrations and Racism Study Centre (Centro de Estudios sobre Migraciones y Racismo –CEMIRA-), and Gonzalo Fanjul Suárez, director of the Policy Analysis Department, at ISGlobal, the driving force of the porCausa Foundation (journalism and research against poverty), and co-editor of the blog El País 3.500 Millones.

Calvo Buezas stated that “the history of humanity is the history of human migrations”. The human being is naturally a “migrant, mixed-raced and diverse”, which is why migrations should not surprise us. Calvo Buezas highlighted two elements as the cause of migrations: economic inequality and demographic imbalances. He has pointed out that “work is the greatest appeal for immigrants, which is why the best form of integration is a job with no exploitative conditions”.

In turn, Gonzalo Fanjul has pointed out that migration is not a new phenomenon. There have been migration waves since the 19th century. Fajul has made a diagnosis of the current migratory system which, he claimed, is “immoral from an ethical point of view and unwise from an economical point of view”. He has, furthermore, stated that this system ignores “the inevitability of migratory flows”, and adds that, “countries insist on controlling these flows as if they were a tap that can be opened or closed, whereas the mobility of people depends on factors which lie beyond government control”. This is why migratory flows “should be governed and not controlled”.

Fanjul has affirmed that 250 million people migrate around the planet and has set emphasis on several issues, such as the fact that migrations are a natural phenomenon, “we are all the result of movement”. He has also pointed out that “migrations and mobility are a positive phenomenon”, assuring that, “emigration is a lever for development”.

Other participants of the session have been: the territorial coordinator of the CEPAIM Foundation in Extremadura, Mehrad Alizadeh, and the autonomous coordinator of the Spanish Red Cross in Extremadura, José Aurelio González Peinado.

This activity is part of the project “Europe in the Face of Global Challenges Concerning Development Cooperation” (“Europa ante los desafíos globales de la cooperación al desarrollo”), financed by the AEXCID, and whose aim is to study the role played by the European Union in depth, in Extremadura, as a region that faces great internal challenges within a global framework of crisis and transformation and which is committed to Sustainable Development as a global challenge, where cooperation among public, private, and civil society actors, as well as among regions and countries, is key for the achievement of shared goals.

The European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation and the Agency for International Development Cooperation (AEXCID) have organised the session “Integration Answers Facing the Migratory-Economic Crises”, that will take place next Thursday, 30th of November, at the University Residence ‘Hernán Cortés’, in Badajoz. The activity, which is part of the Campus Yuste program, is free of charge and open to the general public. It will take place in the morning and those who attend will be given a certificate issued by the Foundation.

Some of the main challenges that Europe and international cooperation development face, such as the reduction of inequalities caused by the economic and the migratory crisis, also known as the refugee crisis as a result of arm conflict and poverty, will be analysed at the session.

Different integration approaches and strategies will be worked on in order to come up with practical solutions, and proposals to enable the organised, safe, and responsible migration and mobility of people through integration strategies will specifically be dealt with.

The speakers are Tomás Calvo Buezas, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology of the Complutense University of Madrid, and founder of the Migrations and Racism Study Centre (Centro de Estudios sobre Migraciones y Racismo –CEMIRA-), and Gonzalo Fanjul Suárez, director of the Policy Analysis Department, at ISGlobal, the driving force of the porCausa Foundation (journalism and research against poverty), and co-editor of the blog El País 3.500 Millones. The table of good practices will count with the territorial coordinator of the CEPAIM Foundation in Extremadura, Mehrad Alizadeh, and the autonomous coordinator of the Spanish Red Cross in Extremadura, José Aurelio González Peinado.

This activity is part of the project “Europe in the Face of Global Challenges Concerning Development Cooperation” (“Europa ante los desafíos globales de la cooperación al desarrollo”), financed by the AEXCID, and whose aim is to study the role played by the European Unionin depth, in Extremadura, as a region that faces great internal challenges within a global framework of crisis and transformation and which is committed to Sustainable Development as a global challenge, where cooperation among public, private, and civil society actors, as well as among regions and countries, is key for the achievement of shared goals.

The last activity included in this project is the session “Integration Answers Facing the Migratory-Economic Crises” that will take place on the 30th of November, at the University Residence Hernán Cortés, pertaining to the County Council of Badajoz.

For further information and to sign up for the courses please visit the following website:
https://www.fundacionyuste.org/campus-yuste/cursos/

On Thursday, the director of the Extremaduran Women’s Institute (Instituto de la Mujer de Extremadura –IMEX-), Elisa Barrientos, held that gender perspective is “absolutely necessary in all public policies” in order to combat violence and discrimination against women and foster equality.

Barrientos made these statements in the opening of the session “A Gender Perspective to Guarantee Equality”, an event where the need to integrate gender perspective at all levels of society in order to avoid violence and the discrimination faced by women, as well as to foster equal rights and opportunities, has been dealt with.

This event has taken place at the Casa de la Mujer de Cáceres and was organised by the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation and the Extremaduran Agency for International Development Cooperation (AEXCID) in collaboration with the Extremaduran Women’s Institute (Instituto de la Mujer de Extremadura –IMEX-), where the director of the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation, Juan Carlos Moreno, also participated.

Barrientos pointed out that “the greatest inequality possible nowadays in a society that seeks to be called democratic, is that given between men and women simply due to gender.” In this sense, she stated that democracy cannot be understood without women, “because a developed and democratic society will clearly not make any progress if it is left without more than fifty percent of its sources and talents”.

The director of the IMEX stressed that formal progress has been made, also as far as citizenship is concerned, in relation to much needed laws, but “we should take advantage of these laws in order to achieve equal and effective equality”. Public and private areas should be shared with co-responsibility “not only between men and women, but also because, as public authorities, we are co-responsible for this equality and conciliation to be present in all society”, claimed Barrientos.

The head of the Extremaduran Women’s Institute has insisted on the importance of tackling the implementation of a gender approach from the basis of international cooperation, because “we don’t only have to act now, in Spain or Extremadura. We also have to act in the countries of origin of many women who come to our country because it is a way to avoid many forms of violence against women, such as female genital mutilation, forced marriages or the trafficking in women and girls, with sexual exploitation purposes”.

The director of the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation, Juan Carlos Moreno, has pointed out that this session responds to a foundational end included in its Statutes, namely social commitment.

Moreno added that this foundation is “an instrument that the people of Extremadura place in our hands in order to cooperate from the basis of education and culture to bring Europe and Ibero-America closer together and that should be close to the citizens’ problems, so that it may remain a vehicle for reflection, analysis, debate, the confrontation of opinions, and the pursuit for solutions”.

This social commitment is expressed in the organisation of this session, which addresses the issue of gender equality and gender-based violence, “one of the scourges of society where we are all bound to work and cooperate together in order to overcome it”, asserted Juan Carlos Moreno.

The director of the foundation stressed the right to life and to physical and moral integrity, concerning this issue. “It wasn’t until the year 2004 that there was a specific law in Spain to deal with this matter. We have had our eyes closed for many years”. Another aspect to bear in mind is the right to education. The director claimed that “we have to create a reserve and train our boys and girls”. He pointed out that 66,92% of all illiterates in Spain are women, and public authorities cannot forget such evidence.

Lastly, he has mentioned the right to work; to equality at work, to point out two facts: that women earn 23,5% less than men in equal positions and that the International Labour Organisation considers that 70 years will be necessary to bring salaries between men and women to equal levels. This is the reason why “political powers should keep an active policy”, claimed Moreno.

With this activity, the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation joins the events regarding the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

PARTICIPANTS

Third sector organisations and public bodies of Extremadura participating in the event, will analyse examples of good practices that are carried out at a European level, as well as in the field of cooperation. The main aim is to shed light on gender inequality and to find solutions, in order to raise awareness of social joint responsibility to put an end to this problem that is affecting all countries.

The speakers included Astrid Agenjo, professor at the Pablo de Olavide University in Seville and member of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences’ (CLACSO) International Task Force on Feminist Economy; Julia Espinosa, researcher at the Gender, Economy, Politics & Development Observatory (GEP&DO) and an expert on gender, the evaluation of public policies, and cooperation; Mª Ángeles Fernández, coordinator of the Píkara Magazine; Carmen Casco Casas, coordinator of the Mujeres Extremadura Foundation, and Erick Pescador, specialist on gender, masculinities, and the prevention of male violence against women, who is also the director of the Gender and Masculinity Study Centre (Centro de Estudios de Género y Masculinidades).

In answer to the journalists’ questions, Elisa Barrientos highlighted the work carried out by Erick Pescador, “a feminist man”; the driving force of the “new masculinities”. Men are responsible for violence against women and they should be given tools and be taught “how to learn to unlearn all that we’ve been taught and learn and act on the basis of solidarity and equality”. She added that men and women “should fight together for equality in a much more just and caring society”.

This activity is part of the project “Europe in the Face of Global Challenges Concerning Development Cooperation” (“Europa ante los desafíos globales de la cooperación al desarrollo”) and it is financed by the AEXCID. Its aim is to study the role played by the European Union in depth, in Extremadura, as a region that faces great internal challenges within a global framework of crisis and transformation and which is committed to Sustainable Development as a global challenge, where cooperation among public, private, and civil society actors, as well as among regions and countries, is key for the achievement of shared goals.

The European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation and the Extremaduran Agency for International Development Cooperation (AEXCID) have organised the session “A Gender Perspective to Guarantee Equality”, that will take place in Cáceres on Thursday, 23rd of November, at 09:00 am, at the Casa de la Mujer de Cáceres, thanks to the Instituto de la Mujer de Extremadura (IMEX).

The activity, which is part of the Campus Yuste program, is free of charge and open to the general public. It will take place in the morning and those who attend will be given a certificate issued by the Foundation.

This session will address the need to integrate the gender approach at all levels of society to combat violence and discrimination against women, as well as to foster equal rights and opportunities. Third sector organisations and public bodies of Extremadura participating in the event, will analyse examples of good practices that are carried out at a European level, as well as in the field of cooperation. The main aim is to shed light on gender inequality and to find solutions in order to raise awareness of social joint responsibility to put an end to this problem that affects all countries.

The speakers will include Astrid Agenjo, professor at the Pablo de Olavide University in Seville and member of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences’ (CLACSO) International Task Force on Feminist Economy; Julia Espinosa, researcher at the Gender, Economy, Politics & Development Observatory (GEP&DO) and an expert on gender, the evaluation of public policies, and cooperation; Mª Ángeles Fernández, coordinator of the Píkara Magazine; Carmen Casco Casas, coordinator of the Mujeres Extremadura Foundation, and Erick Pescador, specialist ongender, masculinities, and the prevention of male violence against women, who is also the director of the Gender and Masculinity Study Centre (Centro de Estudios de Género y Masculinidades).

This activity is part of the project “Europe in the Face of Global Challenges Concerning Development Cooperation” (“Europa ante los desafíos globales de la Cooperación al Desarrollo”) and it is financed by the AEXCID. Its aim is to study the role played by the European Unionin depth, in Extremadura, as a region that faces great internal challenges within a global framework of crisis and transformation and which is committed to Sustainable Development as a global challenge, where cooperation among public, private, and civil society actors, as well as among regions and countries, is key for the achievement of shared goals.

The last activity included in this project is the session “Integration Answers Facing the Migratory-Economic Crisis” that will take place on the 30th of November, at the University Residence Hernán Cortés, pertaining to the County Council of Badajoz.

For further information and to sign up for the courses please visit the following website:
https://www.fundacionyuste.org/campus-yuste/cursos/

The Entrepreneur Program, promoted by Philip Morris and designed by the University of Extremadura (UEx), begins its seventh edition with the clear and firm commitment to employ an innovative approach, in a context marked by the future opportunities and challenges of a key sector for Extremadura that is progressing towards smokeless tobacco.

The directors of this 7th edition, Ricardo Hernández Mogollón and Antonio Fernández Portillo, both professors at the Faculty of Business, Finance and Tourism, have developed new contents with innovative formats for this Entrepreneur Program “Innova Edition”. It isa comprehensive program of sessions that aims to inspire and cause reflection and debate, when dealing with more than 20 real current live local cases, explained by the main characters.

According to the directors of the Program, “we seek to inspire the participants in this new edition, to encourage them to look beyond, and to complete the work carried out during previous editions on entrepreneurial skills with the experience of others, personal reflection, and joint debate, on the basis of real cases and new perspectives and opportunities. Hernández Mogollón considers that this “Innova Edition” approach is “a unique opportunity to deal with the transformation of the sector, improving its management capacities with innovative and digital tools, through practical and inspiring sessions that may push the sector to tackle the new domains from its individual decisions, as well as from those jointly taken, in benefit of the tobacco sector”.

This edition is addressed to students who have already participated in past editions, as well as to new candidates coming from the tobacco growing industry. In order to participate in this new edition, proactive candidates that are committed to the future of tobacco, have an entrepreneurial mindset, and believe in continual improvement as the key to forge ahead in the sector, are sought.

In turn, Javier Figaredo, the Director of Corporate Affairs of Philip Morris in Spain, points out that “weare facing a moment of absolute transformation as a company and as a sector working on smokeless tobacco products; those who won’t support 21st century tobacco will be left behind”. “With initiatives such as the Entrepreneur Program, our ambition is to look towards the future of tobacco together, decisively working from the stand of innovation, which is the only way to achieve the sustainability of our sector”, Figaredo concludes.

The training program will begin at the end of November, lasting a total of 120 hours, where two weekly sessions will take place at the Campus of Cáceres of the University of Extremadura, and at the facilities of the European and Ibero-America Academy of Yuste Foundation in Cuacos de Yuste.

Yesterday, the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation organised a session on “Democratic Governance and the Media”, along with the Extremaduran Agency for International Development Cooperation (AEXCID), at the Extremaduran Assembly.

The Foundation´s director, Juan Carlos Moreno, took part in the opening of the event, and announced that the new Foundation´s statutes “have incorporated social commitment as one of its aims”. “We believe that the Foundation is an instrument that the people of Extremadura place in our hands in order to do good things, and this is possible when being close to the citizens’ problems and to issues that affect our daily lives, in order to analyse them, to reflect upon them, to debate and find solutions to the best of our ability”, he said.

The session focused on the quality of information and the right to truthful information, and transparency; on democratic systems; on the task of investigative journalism to make “the hidden visible”; on the defense of human rights, and on the democracy that the freedom of the press entails. To this effect, the session included the participation of Elena Cabrera, the director of Journalism at the porCausa Foundation, a non-profit organization that carries out social research and journalism on migrations; Silvia Pérez, journalist and member of LA MUNDIAL, a policy-making group with long and varied experience in policy analysis, political incidence strategies and social communication, and the development of research, awareness-raising, and communication actions; Ángel Sastre, an Extremaduran reporter who works in areas of conflict, such as Syria, Colombia, Venezuela, Ukraine, Mexico, and Qatar; Olmo Calvo, a photo journalist who works independently for national and international media and who has documented the economic and social crisis in Spain and the tragedy of refugees on their way to Europe throughout the past years, and Juan Luis Manfredi, a professor of Journalism at the University of Castilla La Mancha and the academic director of the Observatory for the Transformation of the Public Sector (Observatorio para la Transformación del Sector Público ESADE-PwC).

In turn, the director of the AEXCID, Ángel Calle, underlined that “the mass media, as the leading actor in the countries we work in and in our own country, is a key democratic tool”. Calle noticed “not only the flow of information”, he said, “but the ability of the media to educate, make pedagogy, and play the part of an educator in the systems of the twenty seven countries where the Extremaduran cooperation works, and where the systems are yet to be consolidated as democratic processes”.

Calle recalled -in his words- the “leading” role that the mass media has in the region of Extremadura, “it helps us with the dissemination of human rights and disseminating the objectives of sustainable development”. According to the director of the AEXCID, “It is crucial to know how to coordinate ourselves with the mass media in the defense of those values which provide our roadmap”, and he concluded with the compromise that these sessions may “strengthen the work of journalists so that they may work with independence and not be subjected to precarious employment systems”.

Ángel Calle remembered those journalists who lost their lives defending democracy in countries where Extremaduran cooperation is present. He also gave clear acknowledgement to the 49 assassinated journalists in the year 2017, according to Reporters without Borders (RSF), and to the 156 journalists who died last year, according to the Press Emblem Campaign (PEC).

Finally, the president of the Extremaduran Assembly, Blanca Martín, highlighted the work carried out by the Foundation, and encouraged the “strengthening of what makes us strong as a region”.

As far as the session is concerned, she explained that, in her opinion, post-truth “is sweeping away those of us who are trying to make truth prevail in an objectively, and that is why it is important for journalist to be here today”.

In this sense, Blanca Martín stated that the media does not deal with “great current concerns, as there are other reporting priorities”, demanding the union of all the actors involved so as to “shed light on what is happening in the Mediterranean, although it seems as though there are those who do not want to give visibility to the injustices that are occurring in Europe”, she concluded.

The European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation will maintain its scheduled sessions, organized in different areas of Extremadura. The second session, “A Gender Perspective to Guarantee Equality”, will take place at the Casa de la Mujer, in Cáceres, on the 23rd of November, and the session “Integration Answers Facing the Migratory-Economic Crises”, on the 30th, at the University Residence Hernán Cortés, in Badajoz.

The European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation is one of eight international partners that will launch an MBA on European Culture, Heritage & Citizenship (MBA CHC), besides 19 others organisations from several European countries participating in the project, such us Belgium and Serbia. The delegate of the foundation in Brussels, Miguel Ángel Martín, will attend the project launch meeting that will take place today in Berlin.

European institutions, from six different countries, in the areas of culture and higher education, including the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation, have successfully applied for a grant at the Erasmus Plus Programme of the European Community Action Scheme to jointly develop a European interdisciplinary curriculum on European Culture, Heritage & Citizenship. This Erasmus Plus funded project will develop a manual for a European curriculum to be presented in 2020.

The project, which has a scheduled duration of three years (2017-2019), includes high level international conferences in different countries, workshops, and task forces, as well as courses, such as the ones organized within the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation’s Campus Yuste, throughout the years 2018 and 2019.

Significant contribution to European citizenship

Erasmus Plus commends this innovative and enterprising initiative, as it offers the possibility to gather and exchange knowledge at a European level with internationally recognized partners, and this should provide an important impetus in establishing an effective curriculum, which combines skills and knowledge acquired in management and economics with those of the arts, culture and heritage. The jury of Erasmus Plus expects that this project will significantly contribute to the discussion on the relationship between heritage and EU-citizenship and thus generate effects in the entire sector.

More active role for students

The project is led by the Netherlands Business Academy, where the MBA CHC is already in its 2nd full academic year. This is why current and future MBA CHC students and students in partnering countries will be actively participating in developing this curriculum.

The project is launched with the purpose of developing skills and insights from professional managers, consultants and entrepreneurs. This is made possible by combining personal experiences with a top MBA training focused on the growing complexity of culture related matters.

The Project’s partners: The Netherlands Business Academy (the Netherlands, Holland), which is the leader of the project, the Amsterdam Summer University Foundation (the Netherlands), Alma Mater Studiorum of the University of Bologna (Italy), la Fondazione Flaminia (Italy), the Institute for Social and European Studies (Hungary), the Foundation Pakhuis de Zwijger (the Netherlands), the StiftungZukunft Berlin (Germany), and the European Academy of Yuste Foundation (Spain).

This morning, Rosa Balas, Director General for External Action and President of the Executive Commission of the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation, presented the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation in Mérida, which results from the merger of the European Academy of Yuste Foundation and the Extremadura Centre for Studies and Cooperation with Ibero-America (CEXECI).  In this presentation, she was accompanied by Juan Carlos Moreno, Director of the new foundation, and César Chaparro, Academic Director of the foundation.

Balas stated that this merger responds, on the one hand, to fulfilling the commitment to restructure foundations and public entities, and on the other, that this new foundation is the result of a vision and a new way of working on Extremadura’s external action, going from the vertical to the horizontal and the transversal.

The President of the Executive Commission of the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation pointed out that the foundation, having a European and Ibero-American scope, “represents a vast potential for Extremadura that we must take advantage of”. In addition, the Ibero-American sentiment “allows us to face common challenges on both sides of the Atlantic, such as migration, adaptation to the digital society, to face the challenge of the Sustainable Development Goals or quality employment, always “with a very clear vision of mutual benefits, promoting actions to learn, show and share, an essential balance in the international relations of the External Action developed by the Board”.

In this same line, Balas stated that the new Foundation will allow us to delve into issues such as the field of security and defence, the essential role played by women in peace processes, and the integration between Europe and Ibero-America. She also commented on the cultural aspect, highly valuing the Spanish language in the Ibero-American community spoken by over 500 million people, “a potential that contributes to the value” she stressed. She added that the Ibero-American part outstandingly developed by CEXECI will continue having a strong presence in the new foundation.

Furthermore, the head of External Action detailed that the Carlos V European Award, which is the Foundation’s activity with most influence, will continue being of a European nature, and reminded us that it will be delivered annually every 9th of May, at the Royal Monastery of Yuste, under the presidency of His Majesty the King.

Balas stated that this new foundation “is one of Extremadura’s most valuable instruments for external visibility”, and she also pointed out that one of the main objectives is that it be better known in our region, “so that they feel that the foundation is theirs”. This objective includes the will to involve schools, seeking the involvement of students and families, to transmit to them the “double European and Ibero-American component of the people of Extremadura”.

Meanwhile, Juan Carlos Moreno, Director of the European and Ibero-American Academy Foundation of Yuste, assured that the sum of both the Yuste Foundation and the CEXECI will give more relevance to the new foundation by combining Europe and Ibero-America. In addition, he detailed the pillars of the new foundation’s programme, which include the Carlos V European Award; the Yuste Campus training programme; research scholarships for doctoral students, analysis and reflection on social issues or alliances with educational centres in Extremadura, “since we need to have a pool of subjects to spread the values of respect, tolerance, diversity, freedom and democracy”.

On the other hand, César Chaparro, Academic Director of the European and Ibero-American Academy Foundation of Yuste, stated that the merger has renewed the ideas, proposals and illusions that were established in 1992 when the Yuste Foundation and CEXECI were created, and now “inertias have become synergies”.

European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste

Chaparro has made a stop at the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste, a meeting place where intellectuals, artists, scientists and politicians met to exchange opinions and make them public. He now wishes to bolster and empower it to be a forum where scholars meet with doctoral students of the Alumni Network and with students of the Yuste Campus, because “we must highlight new researchers, as our future lays in turning a spotlight on Europe and Ibero-America for young people”.

In this section, Rosa Balas asserted that the goal is to reactivate the Academy “to be European and Ibero-American, and to work on making it intergenerational, seeking gender parity”. In addition, she anticipated that the next appointment, which will take place in 2018, will be Ibero-American, so that there is a territorial balance between Europe and Ibero-America.

About the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation

The European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation was incepted as a public entity, under the Presidency of the Regional Government of Extremadura, a non-profit, cultural, scientific, research and disseminating organisation that aims to contribute to bolstering and consolidating the promotion of democracy, respect for human rights, promotion of peace and international harmony. The foundation has its main headquarters in the Royal Monastery of Yuste and offices in Mérida and Brussels.

The merger of the European Academy of Yuste Foundation and the Extremadura Centre for Studies and Cooperation with Ibero-America (CEXECI) began in December 2016, following the agreement of the Governing Council of the Regional Government of Extremadura and the approval by the board of trustees of both foundations, and aimed at taking advantage of the common work and integration of the heritage and resources of both institutions. The union between the European scope of the European Academy of Yuste Foundation and the Ibero-American scope of CEXECI gives rise to a new entity that is extraordinarily powerful and strengthened, which will operate as a transfer and gearing vehicle between Europe, Extremadura and Ibero-America, aimed at creating new bridges of union between their territories, spaces and cultures.

The European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation organises the “50 of One Hundred. 50 years in the company of One Hundred Years of Solitude” seminar, which aims at taking a journey through the life trajectory of Gabriel García Márquez, one of the literary exponents of Ibero-American literature, and his universal work “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, half a century after its first publication.

This seminar starts on Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. at the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, and in the afternoon, at 7:00 p.m. at the Modern Languages Institute.

These events are intended to pay tribute to the Buendía family saga on occasion of its 50 years of existence with a series of conferences, a round table and an exhibition around this personality.

During the seminar, leading specialists participate from different perspectives   to contribute their vision and analysis; including among others Francisca Noguerol, University Professor of Hispanic-American Literature at the University of Salamanca; Selena Millares, University Professor of Hispanic-American Literature at the Autonomous University of Madrid and Antonio Machado International Literature Award in 2014; Pablo Sánchez, University Professor at the University of Seville; Jordi Gracía, Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Barcelona; the novelist and essayist Gonzalo Hidalgo Bayal; the journalists Juan Domingo Fernández, Deputy Director of Diario Hoy in Cáceres, and Jorge Barriuso, cultural journalist, screenwriter and translator, who has also been director of the cultural programme ‘El postre’, on Radio 3, and in this same radio station he collaborates in the programme ‘Hoy empieza todo’, in addition to directing ‘Opiniones de un payaso’ on Radio Clásica.

‘One hundred years of solitude’ was published for the first time in Argentina by the Sudamericana publishing house, on 30 May 1967. The novel works with the structure of ancient myths, but it is made with the literary tools of today. The history behind the creation of the world, and of man in that world, is something that interests and moves people of all cultures.

EXHIBITION OF FIRST EDITIONS, BOOKS DEDICATED AND RECORDS RECORDED BY GABO

In parallel, tomorrow at 9:00 p.m., the exhibition ‘El mundo de Gabo en el cincuentenario de Cien años de soledad’ is inaugurated at the Cáceres Modern Languages Institute, composed of first editions, dedicated and signed books, publications in magazines and newspapers of the time, records recorded by him and photographs that will allow a vision of the literary career and life of Gabriel García Márquez, Nobel Prize Winner for Literature and without a doubt the most emblematic personality of the Latin American literature ‘boom’.

Among the material exhibited, which belongs to the Museum of Writers of Madrid, you will find the first edition of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, published by the Sudamericana publishing  house, in Buenos Aires, in 1967; the vinyl record Gabriel García Márquez reads One Hundred Years of Solitude’, AMB record company, Buenos Aires; the special edition of ‘The general in his labyrinth’, signed by him, and the pirate edition of ‘The black man who made the angels wait’, among others. In addition to original photographs of the Gabo period with Juan Carlos Onetti, in Barcelona, at the Carmen Balcells Literary Agency and different portraits; a copy of the first edition of ‘Story of a Deicide’, a book written by Vargas Llosa about Gabo before falling out with him, and a compilation of texts about Gabriel García Márquez by the Casa de las Américas, in Cuba, in 1969, which includes texts by Mario Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes, among others. There will also be journalistic reviews like Vietnam inside, from the year 1979, in the Alternative Magazine, ending the tour with one of the yellow paper butterflies that were released on the day of the writer’s funeral from the balconies of the Palace of Fine Arts of Mexico City.

This exhibition will be open to the public until 7 December at the Cáceres Modern Languages Institute.

These events, which represent a tribute to Gabriel García Márquez and his universal work, are organised by the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation, with the collaboration of the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts; the Cáceres Modern Languages Institute and Tropa No. 1 Training Centre.