Our founding member and current host of our headquarters, the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed), is organising the dialogue "Youth creators transforming the Mediterranean", which will take place next 25th of September 2019 at the Institut d’Estudis Catalans - IEC (Institute for Catalan Studies), in Barcelona, Spain.

This event will gather the winners of two contests launched by the institute, and will count on the important presence of Nabil Al-Sharif, Executive Director of the Anna Lindh Foundation, who will speak about the important role of this organization to promote the intercultural dialogue across the Mediterranean.

The journalist and writer Virtu Morón will host and moderate the event, which also will count on the participation of Joandomènec Ros, Director of the Institute for Catalan Studies, and Josep Ferré, Acting Director General of the IEMed, who will introduce the dialogue and highlight the importance of youth voices as change agents through artistic creation, the objective of both contests featured in this meeting.

On the one hand, Sawsan Nourallah and Inès Goor, winners of our illustration contest "Drawing 4 Equality: Challenging gender roles on both sides of the Mediterranean", will discuss about the essential role of art and illustration to reflect current women’s issues and fight for gender equality.

On the other hand, Bartolomiej Juszak, Khamsa Harabi and Isamil Hamoumi have been awarded with the three first prizes of "A Sea of Words", an annual short story contest launched by the IEMed with the collaboration of the Anna Lindh Foundation, which promotes young writers, and whose theme this year was “Young People’s Commitment in Social Change”.

All the winners, together with the rest of finalists of “A Sea of Words”, will spend three days in Barcelona, participating in an artistic workshop in the Sala Beckett, exchanging experiences, networking, and enjoying some tourist activities in the city.

The event will be ended with an artistic performance by the artist Mohammad Othman who will illustrate, in real time, selected fragments of the awarded short stories which will be recited simultaneously. The audience will be able to enjoy, through a big screen, this conjunction of both contests, putting together illustration and literature.

This dialogue will also serve as an opportunity to inaugurate our art exhibition "Drawing 4 Equality: Challenging gender roles on both sides of the Mediterranean", born from the aforementioned contest. From September 25 to October 11, you will be able to contemplate the 20 finalist artworks at the Institute for Catalan Studies (Barcelona, Spain), and reflect on different and inspiring views on gender roles.