Who we are

• Promote active citizenship that works for democracy, global sustainability and peace.
• Spread International and Intercultural Education to reach everybody
• Expand the access to Intercultural and International Education; making sure that youth from disadvantaged environments can make use of grants and support to take part in our educational experiences.
• Contribution to spreading ethics and sustainability in society

The fields in which we work are integrated in our programs as followed:

• International and Intercultural Education Programs: we have a great diversity of programs, both Outbound (sending participants out of Spain) and Inbound (receiving foreigners in Spain). All allow the participants to experience other realities, cultures and educational environments.
• Training in Global Citizenship: we extend and include education in global citizenship in all our programs, exposing the youngsters to their problems and solutions in an experiential way.
• Promotion of Voluntary Service: we promote voluntary service and include it in a transversal way in almost all our programs, exposing the youngsters to service and social involvement.

• We work with the “Global Service Learning” Methodology, or “Learning-Service”, combining learning and development of competences with the improvement of local communities all around the world.
• In-person and direct accompaniment during the entire cycle of the project:

Learn (before, training and preparing our participants)
Take action (during, where we make sure of our impact on local communities)
Transform (after, contemplating about the learning and talent generated and giving back to the local surroundings)

Origin of AIPC Pandora: The Experiment in International Living: Donald Watts created the organization so that adolescents can get to know other countries and cultures, with the goal to promote the understanding between nations and world peace. The first group of 23 American adolescents travelled to France in the summer of 1932. “People learn to live together by living together” – nowadays “Building Peace through Understanding”.The name: Association for the Integration and Progress of Cultures, Pandora.

• Culture is the way in which every one of us interprets the world and immediate reality, that what defines our way of thinking, feeling and acting.
• Integration: integration is a process to understand and adapt to new realities, ways of being and thinking, without losing our own identity and culture, stimulating communication and participation.
• Progress is that what everybody goes to and their relationship with others, concentrating on the constant effort to improve their own life and that of the ones around us.

“No man can find his own soul until he finds a balance between himself and society” A.Einstein

Prometheus stole the fire from Zeus, the god of gods in Greek mythology; to revenge Zeus created Pandora, asking all the other gods to provide her with all kinds of gifts, beauty, intelligence, and so on; Zeus sent Pandora to Epimetheus, Prometheus’ brother, so they would fall in love and get married. As a wedding gift Zeus gave Pandora a box that contained all the bad things in the world and he asked her to never open it. But Pandora couldn’t resist the temptation and opened the box, all the bad got out and reached the earth. When she closed the box, the only thing that left, was hope.
Why the name AIPC Pandora?

• Greece is the foundation of western culture
• Pandora is the first woman in Greek mythology, the equivalent of Eve in the Judaeo-Christian mythology
• The European way of thinking and its values, the democracy and western philosophy is deduced from the Greek thinkers

The western, pure values and the necessity of having them with you + the hope that stayed in the box = the inspiration and foundation of AIPC Pandora
Nowadays these values are translated in:

• All the competences that Europe publishes in its programs for youth based on critical, rational and scientific thinking that, developed through experience, results in real learning
• Democracy
• Citizenship