5 years (wanting to be 100) fighting for Catalan culture and language

GironaIn 2020, just before the outbreak of the pandemic, in the Mercaders square in Girona, halfway between the Rambla and the Plaza del Vi, was born The Promotion, a very ambitious private initiative that works to spread the Catalan language, culture and gastronomy. The first stone was the School, soon after the Taverna opened, then the Fonda and, later, the Center, thus forming a kind of cultural complex around the same square, where, in addition to serving dozens of Catalan dishes every day, a lot of activities are organized. This 2025 El Foment celebrates five years with a great desire to establish itself as a cultural center of reference in the Països Catalans.

"It is a place where Catalan identity is lived intensely. Now we are celebrating five years, but time moves mountains, so we visualize the objective of El Foment continuing for 100 more years," certifies the businessman Candi Granés, promoter, patron and president of El Foment, which follows Catalan culture, which is ours and is millennia old."

Birthday party, popular culture festival and habanera singing

To celebrate this fifth anniversary, El Foment, which has recently been set up as a foundation to recruit patrons and become financially sustainable in the long term, is preparing a party on 21 and 22 February in the Cloister and Auditorium of the Centro Cultural la Mercè. It will start on Friday with a first night of comedy, with Valencian Maria Juan as the headliner; the following day, Saturday, there will be a family morning with Dona del Sac, and in the afternoon you can experience the last concert in Girona by Roba Estesa, who has just announced that they are folding.

The activities, however, will not only last for a weekend but will extend throughout 2025, with a series of proposals for all tastes, which confirm the growth and involvement of the project: from the Folklore Festival, of popular culture, in April, in which the first artistic production will be premiered, to the first habanera singing of Girona, in June in the Plaza Catalunya. In the coming months, El Foment will also present Carme Sansa's monologue on the trade unionist Isabel Vila, with charity box office going to the La Bressola School in Perpignan, or the pre-premiere of the new comedy show 50 damages of memory, by Toni Albà, on the commemoration of Franco's death. The publication of a quarterly magazine with content from all over Catalonia and a digital newspaper with updated information is also being prepared.

El Foment will even leave the walls of Girona and, in August, will offer in Sant Antoni de Calonge the presentation concert of Maria del Mar Bonet's new album, within the framework of the Festiu Festival. And it will not be the only event organized with other cultural agents, but, faithful to its spirit of exchange and collaboration, the Girona cultural center also announces joint proposals with other events such as the MOT Festival, Barnasants or Inundart. Regarding this very diverse and varied program, Quim Ayats, Councilor for Culture of the Girona City Council, concludes: "Culture evolves and El Foment is very attentive to all these changes, but at the same time respects the essence and the roots."