ARTS AND LEARNING: A CALL TO ACTION OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED

Ottawa, Jan­u­ary 25, 2005 — After two years of dis­cus­sions, the CCA, along with the Canada­Coun­cil for the Arts and the Cana­dian Com­mis­sion for UNESCO jointly launched a pro­gramti­tled Arts and Learn­ing: A Call to Action in Novem­ber 2004.

The goal of this ini­tia­tive is to enlist the arts and cre­ativ­ity as learn­ing strate­gies in Canada’sschools and com­mu­ni­ties, as well as to ensure a per­ma­nent under­stand­ing of the impor­tanceof this prin­ci­ple in pub­lic pol­icy. To accom­plish this, the project will under­take a cam­paign toraise aware­ness amongst stake­hold­ers of the advan­tages of arts as a teach­ing tool in the­class­room, and the role of the arts in life­long learn­ing. The project will also include research onthe arts and learn­ing in Canada, and will estab­lish part­ner­ships with those active in this areain at var­i­ous lev­els of gov­ern­ment, the arts and the community.

In doing this, Canada will put itself in step with coun­tries such as the United States, Aus­trali­aand the United King­dom, which have stud­ied the ben­e­fits of learn­ing the arts and learn­ingth­rough the arts.

This project of the CCA, the Canada Coun­cil and the Cana­dian Com­mis­sion on UNESCO willalso con­tribute to an inter­na­tional move­ment, cul­mi­nat­ing with UNESCO’s World Con­fer­enceon Arts Edu­ca­tion to be held in Lis­bon, Por­tu­gal, in March 2006.

For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact Denis Bertrand, project coor­di­na­tor for Arts andLearn­ing: A Call to Action, at 1–800-263‑5588, exten­sion 4437, or (613) 566‑4437. He can also bereached via email at denis_bertrand2004@yahoo.ca