Intercultural Community Centers (CIC)
The Ecuadorian government has a project for rural areas of the country, called “Intercultural Community Centers (CIC)”. There are currently 22 facilities that seek to stimulate cultural exercise and free artistic practice in the territory, as well as strengthen intercultural dialogue, cultural management policy in the public space, recovery of social memory and knowledge and valuation of local heritage, I order to promote the effective deconcentration of goods, services and cultural products, and to achieve decentralized spaces for cultural management that promote good living.
For this project, the following strategic objectives have been proposed: to achieve the territorialization of the National System of Culture; to structure contents for transfer of capacities and to strengthen the management articulated with GAD; to stimulate the cultural action of the Intercultural Community Center in areas of territorial influence; to promote cultural agendas programmed at local, provincial and regional levels (See Annex 12).
Due to the heterogeneity of territories where the CIC are located, the results have been gradual and presented different responses, depending on the level of development of the capacities of GAD. Despite this complexity, the implementation of the management model shall achieve the following specific objectives:
- CIC articulated to a policy of use and access to public space.
- CIC specialized in local cultural expressions, resignification of memory.
- CIC managed by GADs, in coordination with local cultural organizations and groups.
- CIC network operating in articulation with local strategies, stimulating the effective action of attached or decentralized and coordinated entities of the National Culture System.
The process of deconcentration that involves this territorial intervention is based on three conducting elements: the intersectorality (which concrete services should be deconcentrated and which mechanisms of public articulation); micro-planning (operational management planning); social sustainability (structure that gives meaning to the new capabilities installed in territory from central level).