Castelo Branco is going ahead with a candidacy to UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network, in the Handicrafts and Popular Arts category.

The announcement was made Friday in the public meeting of the municipal executive and the application is presented in a session scheduled for this Tuesday, the 25th, at the Tavares Proença Júnior Museum.

According to the Castelo Branco City Hall, the project “began in early 2022 and should culminate at the end of June 2023 with the submission of the candidacy dossier to UNESCO.

In this session the UNESCO International Meeting of Creative Cities will also be presented.

The Castelo Branco City Hall justifies the candidacy with the promotion of the Castelo Branco Embroidery.

“Castelo Branco’s integration in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network will promote cooperation with other cities that, just like Castelo Branco, recognize creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable development”, says vice-president Hélder Henriques.

This initiative “is not exhausted” in the candidacy to the United Nations organization for culture, “since it intends to potentiate the dynamics that are being created to impel the development and growth of Castelo Branco as a creative, cosmopolitan, and sustainable territory”.

If the candidacy is made possible, Castelo Branco becomes the third locality in the district to integrate this worldwide network, after Idanha-a-Nova and Covilhã.

Idanha-a-Nova was in 2015 the first Portuguese locality to enter this UNESCO Creative Cities Network, in the Music category, along with Óbidos in Literature.

This was followed in 2017 by Amarante (Music), Barcelos (Crafts and Popular Arts), and Braga (Digital Arts).

In 2019 Caldas da Rainha (Handicrafts and Popular Arts) entered, and in 2021 Covilhã (Design) and Santa Maria da Feira (Gastronomy).