Programmes
Areas
SPANDA'S
PROGRAMMES AND INTERESTS
are built around four core areas of focus:
Culture,
Education, Health & Environment, Research.
PROGRAMMES
ARE DESIGNED TO FOSTER THE ADVANCEMENT
of
peace, knowledge and understanding among individuals,
groups and organizations who are both the source and recipients
of various forms of knowledge and that, by being founded on
good practices, contribute to the growth and well-being of
people in their communities and social environment.
Some projects,
for their specificity, may originate, advance,
expand and be implemented under
two or more programmes areas.
Spanda
supports its mission with long-term projects requiring
multi-year commitments of funding and technical assistance.
Spanda
fully supports the
UN Millennium Development Goals.

Spanda's
View on Cultural Diversity
Culture
is the learned, shared and symbolic integrated pattern of human
knowledge, a system of meanings, values, believes, attitudes and
behaviour that depends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting
knowledge to succeeding generations. This is but one of the many
definition of culture. While another exposition maintains that
culture is a category of nature, discerning at times between natura
naturans and natura naturata, still another one
holds that culture is just a reflected image, a mere shadow of
the original metaphysical imprint cast on the plan of manifestation,
or the expression of the human inner self, or a matrix of significance,
and so forth. Notwithstanding the wealth of different definitions
– reflecting the diverse theories for understanding or criteria
for valuing human activity – they all maintain that the constituents
of culture, encoded symbolically and shared by the members of
a society are, inter alia, ideas, thoughts, symbolic
system of values, beliefs, languages, communications, knowledge
and practices concerning nature and the universe, history, social
relationships, politics, religions, laws, institutions, actions,
arts, representations, expressions, traditions, norms, customs,
habits, skills, craftsmanship, folklore, aesthetics, tools, implements,
utensils, clothing, ornaments, rituals, games, food, material
goods, and the like.
This being so, cross-cultural awareness should mean not only becoming
culturally fluent and savvy in other cultures but having a solid
understanding of whom we are and our own cultural dynamic. Cultural
differences must be understood and acknowledged before they can
interplay proactively.
One of Spanda's purposes is to protect, conserve, support and
propagate both our tangible and intangible cultural heritage,
constantly recreated in response to the environment while interacting
with nature and the historical conditions. To sustain cultural
creativity and expressions as a unifying factor within diversity
provides a sense of identity and continuity within a society.
The
Spanda Foundation's current projects:
Jubilo – A comparative approach to Jewish,
Christian and Islamic realities;
Musiké
– Research, recovery, documentation, conservation and dissemination
of the ethnomusicologiacl heritage.
We arealways open to synergic partnership
with individuals, groups and organizations whose development
of activities and initiatives are aligned to
our thematic focuses.
We work together with various different partners.
We bring together people with very different views.
We look for ideas that will create systemic change,
have high impact and broad replicable applications.
We carry out assignments at the request of regional,
federal, European and international governments and institutions.
A
R E A S
O F F
O C
U S
C
u l t u r e
E d u c a t i o n
H
e a l t h &
E n v i r o n m e n t
R e s e a r c h
•
Spanda
is a resource for innovative people.

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