Marija Serifovic, winner of the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest for Serbia, has been elected by the European Union as goodwill ambassadress for the campaign “2008, Year of Intercultural Dialogue”. Marija, together with other six distinguished personalities, will put her efforts in empowering the cultural interchanges between the European citizens.
Next year 2008 will be dedicated by the European Union to the Intercultural Dialogue with the motto "United in diversity". This initiative seeks to promote mutual understanding, the spirit of living together despite the cultural differences and empower the Europeans' feeling of belongingin a big common area.
Seven remarkable personalitiesfrom many cultural fields have been elected by the Europen Union as goodwill ambassadors. Marija Serifovic, the latest Eurovision winner, is one of them. The rest of the team is made up by the Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho, the Slovak orchestra conductor Jack Martin Händler, the Romanian film director Radu Mihăileanu, the Slovenian conceptual artist Marko Peljhan, the Spanish violoncellist Jordi Savall and the Turkish pianist Fazil Say.
The 2008 project will include seven "flagship projects", regarding different areas such as urban culture, popular arts, youth participation, migration, media, video projects or immigrant communities' projects. In addition, there will be another 27 national plans, one for each member of the EU.
This is not the first time that Eurovision gets in close relation with a European Union project. This year, 2007, the initiative "2007: European Year of Equal Opportunities for All" became one of the primary partners of the Eurovision Song Contest held in Helsinki.
You can learn more about the Year of Intercultural Dialogue here .
