Te theme of the First World Summit is “Creativity and Well-being for All: Changing the Future!”, inspired by the overall impact of these networks to society and as a continuity to an international project where I3C is a partner.  The topic addresses the role of the arts and creativity for sustainable community development and the rising demand for policies, including cultural policies, supporting what people themselves characterize as their well-being. In a time of economic and moral crisis, the Summit aims to contribute concrete new approaches and programs that enhance the role of the networks of community arts and cultural centers towards social well-being as direct mediators between people’s demands and public politics.

The organizer of the event is the International Council for Cultural Centers (I3C). I3C was established in 2008 in Bulgaria with the purpose to serve as the global platform for meeting, unity, coordination, and cooperation of national and continental networks of community cultural centers, facilitating the exchange of good practices and the creation of international projects in the sphere of community arts for social transformation. I3C was founded in particular in Bulgaria, because it is the home of one of the oldest and largest networks of community cultural centers in the world, called “chitalishte”, initiated as a civil society initiative in the 1850s and currently supported by the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture coordinating more than 3500 centers.

The goals of the event are to:

• Bring together for the first time and establish beneficial contact between national networks/associations of community cultural centers
• Provide a platform for the exchange of good practices in the field of intangible cultural heritage and community arts for social transformation
• Help strengthen and capacity-build each national network by facilitating new national programs and joint projects across countries
• Facilitate the unique meeting and strengthening of 3 continental cultural networks (European Network for Cultural Centers, African Arterial Network, Latin American Network of Arts for Social Transformation) and facilitating the development of new national and continental networks (Asian and North-American)
• Develop a long-term program for strategic international cultural cooperation
• Develop and organize the principles of membership in I3C’s inter-continental network/platform

The programme is available here.

For further information, see the external link below.