The UAB and La Bressola sign an agreement to promote the use of Catalan

The rector stated that it is “an honour” for the UAB to cooperate with “an institution as prestigious as La Bressola” that accumulates “fifty years of work dedicated to maintaining a culture and a language". Rector Lafuente expressed that the will of a public university like the UAB is to “respond to the needs” of society with initiatives like this one, and hoped that this collaboration will increase the possibilities of student mobility. In this sense, Enric Larreula, honorary president of the Amics de La Bressola and retired lecturer of the Department of Didactics of Language and Literature and Social Sciences of the UAB, recalled that the Faculty of Education has been sending students to La Bressola centres for years and that “they return filled with motivation”. Larreula was “deeply grateful” for the help of the UAB and praised the work of La Bressola which, in the words of Guillem Nivet, helps students “become aware” that they are part of a linguistic community that is “alive, powerful and open to the world”, especially highlighting the importance of Catalan in university studies.

The event was also attended by other members of the UAB governing team. José Luis Muñoz, vice-rector for Training and Teaching Innovation, stressed the importance of La Bressola's educational project in three aspects: language immersion, the promotion of peer learning and the transversality of a project-based education. Òscar Jané, vice-rector for International Relations, said that “it is part of the idiosyncrasy of the UAB to be concerned about its surroundings” and hoped that the relationship with La Bressola would encourage its students to come to study at the UAB. And Laura Santamaria, vice-rector for Culture and Language Policy, emphasised the need to focus on the situation of the Catalan language and expressed the willingness of the UAB to contribute to its preservation throughout the country.

The meeting at the Rector's Office was also attended by Eric Forcada and Montse Higueras, member and secretary, respectively, of Amics de La Bressola, as well as the deputy vice-rector to the rector for Strategic Planning, Francisco Morente; the vice-rector for Students and Employability, Anabel Galán; the dean of the Faculty of Science, Juan Jesús Donaire; and the dean of the Faculty of Psychology, Andrés Chamarro.

One thousand students

The Amics de La Bressola association was founded in 1986 with the aim of giving support to the maintenance and expansion of Catalan schools in Northern Catalonia. Its work over the years has mainly consisted in providing La Bressola with both the financial contributions collected and the institutional aid obtained - often decisive in guaranteeing the functioning of La Bressola - and of spreading the word about the existence of schools in Northern Catalonia committed to the recovery of the Catalan language.

Thanks to the support of institutions, organisations, associations, town councils and individuals, in addition to the support of the Government of Catalonia, La Bressola has six kindergarten and primary schools and one secondary school that educates some one thousand boys and girls in Catalan. According to the association, the current situation of the schools is “of great difficulty despite the fact that demand is very high” and “new educational centres would have to be opened” to be able to cover the demand for places.

The UAB has been collaborating with La Bressola for years in the initial training of teachers thanks to agreements with the Faculty of Education to send students on internships to schools in Northern Catalonia. In addition, some of the teachers hired at La Bressola's centres have graduated from the UAB. And this past February the UAB made public a manifesto of support in which it “expresses its concern for the financial difficulties faced by La Bressola and urges the authorities and administrations of Northern Catalonia to address them adequately and immediately”.