18
Amrapaali / January 2015
NEWSTREK
Mexican dance
Photo courtesy: Thelatinoauthor site
The project has been influential to people
and the cultural industry at various
level. At some case, it has been equally
beneficial on the public sector. José
Juan Espinosa Torres, the Mayor of San
Pedro Cholula enthusiastically arranged
a workshop and unbelievably it scored
the highest numbers of registrations. He
then launched a public policy of assuring
permanent and constant consultancy for
local entrepreneurs and invest around
half million US Dollars in the capacity of
Arts and culture. He says, “Culture is a
universal right and projects like this will
help San Pedro Cholula.”
In other case, Miguel Ángel Mier
Delgado, Director of the Municipal
Culture Institute in Guadalupe after
participating in one of the Paralelo 9XM
workshop, initiated a public policy to
help designers, advertising professionals,
scenic
artists
and
art
galleries
professionalize their businesses. This
concept led to the emergence of
‘Mercadito
Culturoso’
an
unprecedented local initiative for artists
to exhibit and promote their products in
markets. Mr. Mier Delgado mentiones
that, “The ‘Mercadito Culturoso’ has
been a great success, in that it
represents a way for creators and artists
to generate income for themselves, which
in turn boosts the local economy in
Guadalupe.”
Likewise in Cameroon, the Research
Centre for Peace, Human Rights and
Development (REPERID) designed a
project named as “Decentralization, the
Diversity of Cultural Expressions and
Local Policies: a new paradigm for local
development strategies in Cameroon” in
support from UNESCO’s International
Fund for Cultural Diversity (IFCD).
Mbuagbaw E. Peter, coordinator at the
REPERID, says that, “On the one hand,
most councils in Cameroon still don’t
recognize the potential of culture in
promoting multidimensional, sustainable
development. On the other hand, the few
councils that do recognize this potential,
lack the knowledge about the legal