UNESCO ETXEA- UNESCO BASQUE COUNTRY

11/11/2013

This week we present you NESCO Etxea – UNESCO Basque Country Centre, a non-governmental organization (NGO) set up in 1991 with the aim of promoting the principles and programmes of UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) within Basque society.
Declared ‘in the Public Interest’ in 2006, it currently has 135 Members which form the institution’s core.

Mission

They share UNESCO’s constitutional mandate to build a fair, dignified peace based on people and their supreme dignity and values. To this end we work as a civil society entity of UNESCO, an international Basque association of solidarity which:

is an active participant in local and international initiatives and networks;
fosters transformational interrelations between Basque society and the international community, particularly UNESCO and the UN; and
contributes its own opinions and criteria, through research, intervention, training, innovation and dissemination.

Vision

We work towards achieving a “Culture of Peace” and ensuring sustainable human development with rights and responsibilities. We work for a world in which people, social organisations, language and cultural communities and nations all contribute to the building of a global democratic society. Together we form a creative, participatory, equal and active human group, which identifies fully with our Mission and Values.

Values

We identify with the values of:

Integrity, since our activities should not only be legal and ethical, but we should also comply with the best codes of practice in our sector;
Assertive participation of the professional team, the Board of Directors, members and collaborators;
Equality of rights and obligations;
Transparency and good governance, both within and without, through the annual publication of our activities and the names of the members of the governing bodies, the way in which they are elected and their terms renewed, the auditing of accounts and the origins of all monetary resources managed.
Professionalism, quality performance, effectiveness, rigour and respect in all areas;
Networking, sharing our commitments with alliances and local and global networks;
Independence, cooperating with public and private institutions, while at the same time maintaining strict independence and responding only to the principles and values of our ideology;
Pluralism, both internally and in our public messages; reflecting in our bodies and work the complexity of the society in which we operate and the global diversity of the world in which we live;