This year the Festival of the New European Bauhaus is taking place with the moto “Together for a beautiful and sustainable future!”. The Latvian Association of Local and Regional Governments was joining the Festival with the side event “Make a wish… Creative places of learning and growing together for better global future.” taking place on 9 June in Liepāja State gymnasium (Liepāja, Latvia) and online. The event was devoted to municipal cooperation, development education, creative places of learning and growth for better future not only in Latvia, but elsewhere through municipal cooperation.
The role of local governments in promoting development cooperation, development education and awareness raising in local community is very important, and the types of activities to be implemented can be so unimaginably different. It can be the co-operation of municipalities with libraries, which are increasingly involved in achieving global goals and are also engaging local people through different activities. These can be summer schools organized by municipalities and gathering children from different countries, where they study together through dance, drawing and singing, which do not even require a full understanding of each other's language. But it can also be the Unseen Film Festival, where through documentaries people see diversity in the world and discover topics they can be even afraid to think about on a daily basis, but through the films these topics are addressed and explained in an imperceptible way.
Storytelling both teaches and enriches us and inspires new thoughts and activities. At the end of the event, the participants are invited to join in the creation of a new common storey by planting trees in the framework of the campaign "Trees for Life" initiated by the European Commission and the European Committee of the Regions.
The event is organised by the Latvian Association of Local and Regional Governments in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia, Liepāja city council and PLATFORMA.