Lord Mayor of Cork City Cllr. Catherine Clancy hosted a Civic Reception and presented a plate in appreciation of the EcCoWell Steering group on Friday, December 13th 2013.

The event was hosted to thank all involved in making the Flagship Gathering event in September - EcCoWell: Cities for the Future – learning from the global to the local - such a success; and to acknowledge how Deputy Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr Lorraine Kingston and Tina Neylon, Lifelong Learning Festival Co-ordinator, were invited as guests of UNESCO to contribute to its first International Conference on Learning Cities in Beijing, China in October.

The Lord Mayor said:

EcCoWell is about moving beyond boundaries and encouraging people to work across sectors for the betterment of all. It brings together strategies about Ecology and Economy, Community and Culture, Wellbeing and Lifelong Learning.

It’s not about spending more money – it’s about being more efficient, by building on areas of common interest between sectors. EcCoWell aims to maximise the positive impacts on the health and educational opportunities of all citizens as well as developing the environmental and economic sustainability of the city, resulting in greater equality, social inclusion and ultimately a better quality of life.

EcCoWell has been developed by Peter Kearns of PASCAL International Exchanges (PIE). PASCAL emerged from work done on lifelong learning by the OECD and our Lifelong Learning Festival is a PIE member.

EcCoWell Cork is steered by representatives of different sectors working together on a voluntary basis because they care about Cork and how it could be improved for all its citizens, and I would like to thank them.

The EcCoWell event in September was a huge success and attracted over 250 delegates from overseas and from all over Ireland. And that is thanks to all of you here today, who contributed to that success.

Delegates heard from:

• Minister Seán Sherlock;
• Professor Mike Osborne, Glasgow University & Co-director of PIE;
• Professor Michael Parkinson, Director, European Institute for Urban Affairs, Liverpool John Moores University;
• José Ignacio Arriba, City Council, Vitoria Gasteiz, Basque Region, Spain - European Green Capital 2012 ; and
• Joan Devlin, WHO Healthy Cities Secretariat, Belfast.

It was an opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences with people from a variety of backgrounds – including local government, the voluntary and community sectors, researchers and academics from the areas of health, education, the environment and economic sustainability.

It also gave us the chance to showcase some of our local projects, with visits organised to them. Delegates also enjoyed some fun activities – among them road bowling, currach building, walking and cycling tours, visits to a museum and sweet factory.

I would like to thank all those who welcomed delegates, and who made their time in our city so stimulating and enjoyable. EcCoWell is a work in progress, and that is a tribute to all of you here for your contributions. Already it is raising the profile of Cork both nationally and internationally.

As a result of the success both of the Lifelong Learning Festival over the last 10 years and the EcCoWell event, Deputy Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr Lorraine Kingston and Tina Neylon, Festival Co-ordinator, were invited to contribute to the creation of a new declaration on learning cities at UNESCO’s first International Conference on Learning Cities in Beijing, China, in October. More than 550 delegates attended, representing 160 countries, with Cllr Kingston and Tina the only Irish people there.

Our Deputy Lord Mayor was invited to represent all the Lord Mayors present as vice-chair at the Closing Ceremony. Cllr Kingston spoke about the festival’s role in establishing Cork as a Learning City and its recent involvement in EcCoWell, and also reflected on what she had learned during the conference.

With a delegate from Finland, Tina represented Europe on the Drafting Committee for the Beijing Declaration on Building Learning Cities and the Key Features of Learning Cities, which were adopted at the conference’s conclusion.

At a meeting this week of the Cork City Development Board, we heard from Cllr Kingston and Tina of their experiences in China, and decided to recommend that Cork City Council adopt the UNESCO Beijing Declaration on Building Learning Cities. It is something we will be progressing in the New Year.

And that’s not all we have to look forward to in 2014 – among events coming up is an EcCoWell Open Networking event in January, the Food Policy Council meeting in March, the 11^th Cork Lifelong Learning Festival in April.

We work well together in Cork, trying to do our best for all our people, but sometimes we don’t appreciate how much we have done. It is only when we hear from people overseas of how impressed they are that we realise how much we are achieving by working together. On behalf of the people of Cork I want to thank all of you here today for your ongoing commitment to the EcCoWell project.

I look forward to meeting you all at events during 2014.