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In addition to its quadrennial World Culture Open Global Festival program, WCO participates in numerous regional festivals and conferences each year, on every inhabited continent. This year, WCO is working with the Pan-African Festival of Dance FESPAD organizational team to help stage the fifth edition of the festival. WCO believes that FESPAD's mission, to bring together the peoples of Rwanda and Africa through the shared celebration of their respective cultures, is convergent with its own goals to use culture in the service of peace. With the following goals in mind, it is WCO's aim to:
- To maximize opportunities for audiences in every culture to experience the wondrous creations and performances of talented artists from around the globe.
- To facilitate people to people contact and mutual understanding that can provide a positive context for improving international and inter-group relations.
- To strengthen the bonds of civil society, cultural pluralism, and enhanced humanitarian practices that build tolerance and cross-cultural understanding by non-governmental means.
- To further personal healing and holistic wellbeing through the promotion of arts and culture in societies affected by conflict.
- To support the selection of artists and humanitarians for the 2008 Global World Culture Open
WCO is drawing on its wide circle of international artistic and humanitarian contacts to raise the international profile of FESPAD, publicizing the festival to artists outside Africa and inviting global artists, humanitarians and peacemakers to come to Rwanda and participate. In this way, WCO can encourage greater communication between Africa and the wider world, and to foster the development of open cultural exchange for peace and understanding among all peoples.
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