A Charter for World Music

Dur­ing Wom­ex 2015 in Budapest, 400 del­e­gates express sol­i­dar­i­ty with refugees through­out Europe. A shared state­ment and a group pho­to­call called on Euro­pean gov­ern­ments to open the bor­ders and con­sid­er migrants as a pos­i­tive force to enrich soci­eties. « World Music is a man­i­fes­ta­tion of fun­da­men­tal val­ues : hos­pi­tal­i­ty, open­ness, cul­tur­al diver­si­ty and respect for human rights ».
To con­tin­ue this dynam­ic, net­works and del­e­gates are work­ing togeth­er to devel­op a World Music Char­ter based upon the inter­na­tion­al­ly accept­ed UNESCO Con­ven­tion for Cul­tur­al Diver­si­ty.
We pro­pose a World Music Char­ter to pro­mote cul­tur­al rights and to express our val­ues against the clos­ing of bor­ders, restrict­ed mobil­i­ty and poli­cies based upon fears, all over the world. With­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty for musi­cians to cross bor­ders, such diver­si­ty in music will cease to exist.
This con­fer­ence ses­sion is the place to dis­cuss and agree col­lec­tive­ly upon a World Music Char­ter and to pro­pose actions for the future. It will take place on Thurs­day the 21st of Octo­ber at 12.00 in Saint Jacques de Com­postelle.

Speak­ers
- Thomas Laou-Hap, direc­tor of Zone Franche (France)
- Bir­git Elling­haus, direc­tor of alba KULTUR (Ger­many)
- Jody Ack­land, inde­pen­dant music pro­fes­sion­al (Ire­land)
- Per­cy Yip Tong, direc­tor of Cyper Pro­duk­tion (Mau­ri­tius)
- Divya Bathia, artis­tic direc­tor of RIFF Fes­ti­val (India)