On 19-21 April 2021, cities that are members of the Intercultural Cities programme (ICC) participated in the “Academy on alternative narratives and intercultural communication”. The aim of the Academy is to bridge the gap between policies and communication, to get useful skills on positive narrative creation, as well as knowledge on the principles of inclusive communication and storytelling. It also offers a chance to build alliances and common understanding between practitioners working on intercultural policies implementation and communicators who should voice the intercultural transformation of the cities.

Under the notion “what story does your city tell?” the Academy examined which narratives work and why, how to tell the intercultural story, what to consider to ensure cities’ communication is inclusive as well as what to do when faced with negative stories in our daily life. When telling our stories, we must always start with knowing our audience – it is they who determine which stories are of interest, which background information the story will be interpreted through and the means of communication which should be used. Hence, one of the sessions of the Academy was specifically aimed to address the relationship between the city and the journalists from the mainstream media.

In the coming weeks, materials relating to the topic of intercultural communication and alternative narratives will be published on the ICC web. In addition, a training course will be published for ICC members.