27.05.2010 14:38
Barça at University
www.fcbarcelona.cat
The Foundation has presented the new UNESCO-FCB-UOC chair for Sport as a tool for social coexistence and the resolution of conflicts which will begin in the next academic year. It is the first time that Barça and a university have teamed up to design
As part of the alliance between the FC Barcelona Foundation and Unesco, signed in November 2007,
the new UNESCO-FCB-UOC chair on Sport as a tool for social coexistence and the resolution of
conflicts was inaugurated today Friday. This will be offered virtually at the Open University of
Catalonia (UOC) with which the Foundation has established a collaboration agreement.
Objectives: to promote social cohesion and the resolution of conflicts
The main aim of this course is to promote social cohesion and the resolution of conflicts
pacifically through sport. The chair will offer procedures, attitudes and competences for students
to be able to analyse and apply the possibilities for sport being used as an instrument for
educational intervention and the transmission of values in contexts where there is a lack of social
coexistence and high conflict.
Pioneering initiative in world football
The presentation act was held in the Sala Espi Roma at the Camp Nou, and was attended by the
president of FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta; the rector of the UOC, Imma Tubella; the director general
of the FC Barcelona Foundation, Marta Segú and the director of the Campus for Peace (UOC), Eduard
Vinyamata.
The president of FC Barcelona and honorary director of the Chair, Joan Laporta, highlighted
the importance of this initiative, as Barça now become “the first sports club to foster the
practice of sport on an academic level as a tool for promoting coexistence and the resolution of
conflicts”.
The rector of the UOC, Imma Tubella, spoke about the educational potential of sport and
underlined that “this Chair reinforces Catalonia’s commitment to solidarity with the
world and to universal access to culture and education. Both Barça and the UOC are institutions of
Catalonia and of the country, and that are open to the world, to cultures and to ideas from all
around the world”.
First course to begin in October
The new UNESCO-FCB-UOC chair on Sport as a tool for social coexistence and the resolution of
conflicts consists of a Masters structured into two postgraduate courses:
- Postgraduate I on “Sociology, Pedagogy and Human Rights”
- Postgraduate II on “Psychology, Geopolitics and Human Rights” ,
The first edition will offer Postgraduate I, which will consist of 750 hours of class and
will commence next October and run until April-May 2011. Inscriptions will be open from, June. The
course will be taught by prestigious lecturers that are experts in pedagogy, sport, the resolution
of conflicts, human rights and social coexistence. Each postgraduate will cost 1,000 euros that
will be used to cover expenses, as none of the three institutions aims to gain financially form the
project.