On September 21-22, 2011 I participated in the UNESCO Experts Meeting on Intercultural Competences at their headquarters in Paris. My thanks to Dr. Katérina Stenou, on this Center’s Advisory Board, for including me.
The goal of the meeting was to respond to a series of regional reports (prepared by Drs. Milena Dragicevic Sesis of Belgrade, Serbia; Alejandro Grimson of Buenos Aires, Argentina; Prue Holmes formerly of New Zealand but now in Durham, UK; Melissa Steyn of Cape Town, South Africa; and Magdi Youssef formerly of Egypt, but now in London, UK) and the synthesis of these prepared by Dr. Darla Deardorff (North Carolina, USA). The other respondents were Drs. Noureddine Affaya (Rabat, Morocco), Eric Cattelain (Bordeaux, France), Yolanda Onghena (Barcelona, Spain), Hanna Schissler (Berlin, German), and Yves Winkin (Lyon, France). On the second day we were joined by a large group of UNESCO Chairs on Interreligious Dialogue for Intercultural Understanding.
We were too busy working to take photographs, but the next day I had time to see the exhibit “Go West!” (a collaboration between artists in Paris and Texas) at UNESCO headquarters.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
Director, Center for Intercultural Dialogue
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 