With Burja around Europe – Multilingual Touluse and Minorities on work

Ivana Stipić Lah

As part of our Erasmus+ accreditation, we had the opportunity to visit the CROATIE – OCCITANIE society. This society, which has been working for 25 years to promote cultural and historical ties between Croatia and the French region of Occitanie, after which it got its name, gave us an insight into its work, activities and future projects.

It was inspiring to witness the unwavering resilience of the small Croatian community, which has been steadfastly addressing its societal challenges for many years. Despite these obstacles, they have fostered remarkably active and robust connections with the local majority society. The organization’s effective collaboration with all minority communities in Toulouse and its participation in Erasmus+ projects, facilitating Croatian students’ visits to French schools, is a testament to their resilience. They organize cultural, educational, and artistic activities for their members, and even run a Croatian language school for the younger generation. The society is under the dynamic leadership of engineer Zdravko Cerovečki, with the promising young talent Karmen Čota supporting him on various projects.

It is exciting that the society also takes care of the monument in the only city in France named Avenue des Croates. Every year, a ceremony is held in memory of the Croatian and Bosnian soldiers who were forcibly mobilized into the German army during World War II. At the same time, it was occupied by Nazi Germany and resisted the Nazis. Most of the rebels were executed on the spot, but a few escaped and inspired French resistance in that part of occupied France.

Meeting with representatives of the Musical de Pibrac theater

Thanks to Zdravko and his connection with the local community, we visited several other vital institutions and made valuable and permanent contacts during our visit. First, we met with Stéphane Novack, director of the Theater Musical de Pibrac, where we discussed artistic and theatre projects. This institution is known for its plays and cultural events, and our conversation opened up possibilities for future cooperation. Days of Croatian culture have already been organized in the theatre run by Stéphane, also of Croatian origin, where music, artworks and Croatian cuisine are presented.

Association for the Protection of the Occitan Language

Together with Karmen and Zdravko, we also met with David Brunel, coordinator of the association’s actions for the protection of the Occitan language, with whom we discussed the importance of language and culture. He presented us with Henri Meschonnic’s proposal for the Declaration on Obligations towards Languages ​​and Language, which was a pivotal moment of our visit because we agreed on the importance of preserving and promoting languages ​​as part of cultural heritage. The society also organizes a language festival in which representatives of all minority languages ​​in Occitania participate. One hundred twenty-four different languages ​​are actively spoken in that part of France. We agreed that with common interests, we would organize a visit of our members from Slovenia so that they could participate in a suitable program in which they would encounter the multicultural moment of Occitania.

Following the visit, we engaged in a series of productive working meetings with our hosts. These sessions allowed us to delve deeper into our respective organizations and identify common areas of interest. We also explored potential future projects and joint activities that we are eager to undertake in the near future. This forward-looking approach instills optimism about the potential for future cooperation.

Cooperation between different educational programs

We ended our visit with a meeting with Jean-Marc Fortuné, the Delegate Director for Professional and Technological Education Programs at the Lycée des Métiers Eugène Montel. We talked about the possibilities of exchange of cooperation between Slovenia, Croatia, and France and about improving educational programs. We were especially interested in creating such synergies so that all our adult participants in educational programs would benefit from new knowledge and competencies, thereby enhancing their learning experience and professional development.

Although we could not visit the Maison des Associations in Toulouse, with the help of our hosts, we will organize different working meetings with them in the future on topics of mutual interest. This institution supports numerous associations and organizes cultural, educational and artistic events, and cooperation with them will bring us many benefits.

We consider all these meetings and conversations precious and look forward to future cooperation with the institutions we visit. Our joint projects, which aim to strengthen the ties between Slovenia and the French region of Occitanie and contribute to cultural and educational exchange, have the potential to make a significant impact in these areas.

Successful visit

In many European countries, we are looking for organizations with whom we could cooperate in the long term, exchange our experiences and implement joint projects to benefit our primary target groups. Our primary goals in visiting this organization were examples of good practices on how to preserve minority languages and culture in other countries, examples of good integration of minority communities into the majority society, development of new education programs through the preservation of cultural heritage and cooperation of different minority communities for synergistic creation of better effects in the local community.

The visit to the company CROATIE – OCCITANIE was highly successful in this regard. Newly acquired knowledge and competencies, presented examples of good practices, presented educational programs, established contacts, and agreed collaborations open up new opportunities for cultural, educational and artistic exchange between Slovenia and the Occitanie region. We look forward to future projects and cooperation and believe this partnership will benefit both parties.