Innovative Cultural Training for the Caribbean

Cultural creation is one of the most dynamic global markets, with enormous potential to foster entrepreneurship and resilience, enhance social cohesion and well-being, develop freedom of expression and dialogue, and provide substantial economic growth and employment worldwide.

The Caribbean region is in a privileged position to harness this rich potential, with its multiplicity of customs, traditions, languages and historical links, resulting from cultural exchanges and reciprocal influences from pre-Columbian times to the present day.

In addition, the region has a long-standing motivation to foster integration and cooperation in order to overcome the challenges posed by the small geographical space of its countries and the limited resources of individual economies and to improve competitiveness. Consequently, there is a clear need to strengthen capacities in the value chain of the region's cultural and creative industries and to harness culture as a tool for integration through intercultural exchange and dialogue.

In this context, UNESCO, with funding by the European Union, launched in 2020, the Transcultura Programme: Integrating Cuba, the Caribbean and the European Union through Culture and Creativity, with the overall objective of deepening cultural integration in the Caribbean and strengthening cooperation and exchange between people in the region and with the European Union.

The beneficiaries are the 17 member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Caribbean Forum (C ARIFORUM) and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS): Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, as well as Trinidad and Tobago.

Besides adapting all the courses offered to an online and blended mode, UNESCO Transcultura is committed to facilitating maximum access to cultural training in the region through the creation of free massive open, online courses (MOOCs) guaranteeing an unlimited number of subscribers.

MOOCs propose an online teaching approach that favours autonomous learning, as both students and teachers are totally independent. It is a course model that also favours lifelong learning.