With the holding of the first edition of the International Day of the Educating City, we aim to bring together multiple voices to send out a unitary, clear and strong message, in favour of education as a political tool for social transformation, and at the same time, to make public our commitment towards international cooperation, solidarity, knowledge sharing and peer learning between cities.
To do so, we invite cities from all over the world to renew their model of government and to join the passionate challenge of re-thinking cities through education so that they become increasingly fairer and inclusive.
Being an educating city entails placing people at the centre of the political action, and to offer a holistic education which allows each and every citizen to find its place in society. This means having citizens who are positively committed towards contributing to the improvement of their communities, but also implies having political leaders who listen to the citizens, and take on board the proposals of the civil society who share the common goal of building an educating city.
In a world in which individualism and market interests seem to prevail over the common good, the educating cities are committed towards inclusion and equal opportunities, social justice, participatory democracy, education for an active citizenship, living together among different cultures, cross-generational dialogue, sustainability and the planning of an accessible and interconnected city in which all of the people count on the stimuli and opportunities that allow them to develop themselves personally and collectively.
Currently there are numerous cities throughout the world in all continents who are working on having education as the transversal axis of their political project, aware of the fact that by means of their educational, environmental, health, urban planning, cultural and mobility policies they transmit values, and that through these it is possible to counter the multiple mis-educating phenomenon and factors that still persist in the cities.
It is encouraging to count on the firm commitment of mayors from all over the world who have wanted to join the celebration of this Day, which backed up by their teams and with the support of numerous entities from the civil society are working towards a new more sustainable and inclusive era.
We are convinced that education is the engine of change and that if the cities progress, we will all win, and that’s why we are inviting you to celebrate the International Day of the Educating City with us.