Casa Árabe has won the Achievement Award given to individual or institutions with substantive contributions to building and consolidating the culture of peace and spreading international understanding.  Casa Árabe is a Spanish public consortium led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Autonomous Regional Government of Andalusia, the Autonomous Regional Government of Madrid, the Municipal Government of Madrid and the Municipal Government of Cordoba. Casa Árabe is the strategic center for Spain’s relations with the Arab world. With its two headquarters located in Madrid and Cordoba, Casa Árabe has become a meeting point where different players and institutions, both private and public, from the worlds of business, education, academia, politics and culture, engage in dialogue, interact, establish lines of cooperation and undertake joint projects.

Since it was founded in 2006, Casa Árabe has carried out its mission as an active platform and tool for Spain’s public diplomacy. This award has been received at a very special time, as Casa Árabe celebrates the tenth anniversary of its public activities in 2017. Hence, this prize is also a recognition for the institution´s efforts to bring Spain and the Arab world closer together.

 

The Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding was created in Doha, Qatar in the year of 2015, with the cooperation of the Forum for Arab and International Relations. It is an international prize overseen by an independent board of trustees, impartial panels of judges and a professional steering committee formed specifically for this purpose. The award’s goals are to promote the Arab and Islamic culture, rid it of unfair distortions and stereotyping, and develops its relations with world cultures by the transfer of knowledge and intellectual learning into Arabic and by the translation of creative Arab cultural tracts into other world languages.

This award includes five different categories, the first four of which are dedicated to translations from Arabic into English and English into Arabic, and in the year 2016 from Arabic into Spanish and Spanish into Arabic, as well. The fifth category is for a Special Award granted to acknowledge one person’s or one institution’s past record in contributing to the construction of a culture of peace and promoting international understanding. This is the category in which Casa Árabe has received the award, along with Banipal, a journal of Arabic literature, and the Ibn Tufayl Foundation for Arab Studies.

 

Casa Árabe’s candidacy was presented by the Spanish International Development Cooperation Agency based on the institution´s performance over the last ten years, devoted to promote Arab culture in Spain and strengthening Spain’s economic, educational and cultural bonds with Arab countries.