EU-LAC Foundation Promotes Latin America and the Caribbean in Hamburg
The EU-LAC Foundation has joined efforts to make Latin America and the Caribbean protagonists of Hamburg’ Autumn cultural programme, through a three-month festival that includes dozens of musical performances, jazz, dance, theatre, film, gastronomy and even a tour at the local Planetarium through the astronomy knowledge and myths of the Mayan civilization.
This initiative had the support of more than forty organizations and the active participation of Latin American consulates, the Ethnological Museum of Hamburg and the Senate of the city-State, in which the Foundation has its seat since 2011.
˝It has been a privilege to participate in this project, which will bring citizens together, and it has favoured collaboration between organizations with headquarters in Hamburg that work in Latin America and the Caribbean˝ said the executive director of the Foundation, Jorge Valdez.
In the presentation to the media of the program of the festival, which officially started on September 21, Valdez emphasized linkages of Hamburg with Latin America and the importance of the region in the development of the city.
He encouraged the Senate of Hamburg, represented at the press conference by the head of the State Authority, Stefan Herms, to continue taking advantage of the potential and dynamism of Latin America, which according to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) lives its decade.
Herms said that Hamburg, indeed, maintains an intense relationship with Latin America since the beginning of the 19th century and recalled that the origin of it was to break the Spanish monopoly on trade.
He added that interest in free trade with Latin America was moved subsequently to many other areas, hence the presence in Hamburg is so important for many Latin American-minded organizations.
Due to labour mobility and exchanges with Latin America, according to Herms, more than 30,000 citizens living in Hamburg speak Spanish and/or Portuguese.
The presentation of the Latin American Autumn was also attended by the General-Consul of Chile, Eduardo Schott, in representation of his Latin American colleagues, and Dr. Wulf Köpke, director of the Museum of Ethnology in Hamburg, where the official opening of the festival took place and parts of the program will be held.
To check the full programme of the festival and daily updates consult the official website and the Facebook page.
Pictures taken at the official inauguration by Arne Bosselmann, Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg.
