The Incontro Culturale Erasmus 2018 celebrates the European Year of Cultural Heritage.

3000 international students in Rome to retrace their common past.

 

The eleventh edition of the Incontro Culturale Erasmus (ICE) will take place in Rome from the 15th to the 18th of November of 2018. Through this event, Erasmus Student Network (ESN) Italy aims to show the artistic beauties of the Eternal City to 3000 international students in exchange in our peninsula who will gather together in the capital of Italy to live a cultural, educational moment.

 

The Incontro Culturale Erasmus was created - as a national event - in November 2008 with the aim of welcoming all the winners of an Erasmus+ scholarship and giving them a cultural contact moment. From then on, this event gathers together thousands of students from all over Italy every year. Could there be a better scenario for such an event apart from Rome, the Eternal City, which uniquely combines culture and the thousand-year-old history of our Nation with an institutional atmosphere due to its role as the capital city?

 

This year the event organized by ESN Italia for Erasmus students of 53 different Italian universities will take place from the 15th to the 18th of November. Students will spend three days in the name of culture and history, discovering Rome and its eternal beauties. This will not only be an opportunity to discover the artistic wonders of the Capital, but also an opportunity for multicultural and intercultural meeting, as international students will be able to learn about the cultures of the other 3000 participants through the activities that ESN Italy has organized for them.

 

The event this year has a particular feature: it takes place during the European Year of Cultural Heritage, the year instituted by the European Commission to encourage more people to discover and get involved with the European cultural heritage in order to reinforce the sense of belonging to a common European place. Its motto is: “Our heritage: where the past meets the future”.

 

And the cultural heritage is the theme of the opening conference of the event, entitled "European cultural heritage. Retrace the past to build the future ". In line with the directives and aims of the European Year of Cultural Heritage, the institutional opening of the ICE 2018 aims to retrace the steps of the creation of a common past to highlight the importance of its conservation and implementation. From this point of view, nowadays a very important role is played by student mobility and by the exchange of training experiences: these, in fact, represent an incredible possibility of intercultural enrichment not only for the youngsters who move in this context but also for the families from which the students come and which invest in the future of their children.

 

For its objectives of promotion and dissemination of the importance of cultural heritage, the opening ceremony of the event has received the patronage of the European Year of Cultural Heritage and the whole event "Erasmus Cultural Meeting" has been included in the European Year of Cultural Heritage calendar. Other sponsors of the event are the Ministry of Education, University and Research, the National Agency Erasmus+/INDIRE, the Agency for the Promotion of European Research APRE, the National Youth Forum and the Youth National Agency.

Moreover, the event will be in collaboration with the European Commission Representation in Italy and under the High Patronage of the European Parliament.

 

The conference will be held on Thursday, the 15th of November 2018 from 9.30 am (CET), within the Europa area, managed by the European Parliament Information Office in Italy, and by the European Commission Representation in Italy at Via Quattro Novembre, 149 - Rome (ground floor).

To join the opening conference, it is mandatory to register at http://www.esnitalia.org/content/incontro-culturale-erasmus-2018

 

After the institutional opening, Friday and Saturday will be days dedicated to guided tours of the historic centre: operators in this sector will lead Erasmus students to discover the most significant and evocative places in Rome, among which the visit to the Vatican Museums will be unmissable, made possible thanks to agreements with the Museums themselves that allow a facilitated entry to all the event participants.

 

After the success of the last edition, on Saturday afternoon will take place a Flag Parade, during which the students will walk through the streets of the capital with the flags of their countries, thus creating a cultural meeting in which the host city too will have the chance to come into contact with the cultures of the 3000 participants.

 

This is the reception that ESN Italy shows to the international students spending their mobility period in our country. The ICE embodies the values that ESN Italy advocates such as volunteering, aggregation, non-discrimination and integration: from the 15th to the 18th of November, the 3000 participants to the event will have the chance to live a unique experience that will translate into a real celebration of Europe, of its common past and its founding principle: Unity in Diversity.