Contents

Aims and Outcomes of
Scotland in Europe

Updated:
31 May 2021

Origins and 30 Years of History

Scotland in Europe, not to be confused with the Scottish Government's new European initiative of the same name, has just turned 30 years old.

The organisation was originally set up in 1991 in Paris after workers from Shelter and Age concern Scotland went to Paris to do some research on how to set up a Voluntary Organisation in another Country.

These workers were heavily involved in a festival for Older People that was part of Glasgow's European City of Culture.

The workers had been in communication with workers from Lyon and asked them if they would be interested in coming to Glasgow to help with working on a banner to celebrate the year of Culture they agreed and brought 10 residents from Lyon to work on the banner. The following conversation led to the above.

The Research started in the library of the Pompidou Centre, what they found was although Scots and the French had a strong alliance from the past, Scotland was not generally known by people from the French working-class community other than we were famous for whisky, football, and tartan. .... Read More

Indeed, when they looked up an encyclopaedia Scotland was listed as a region of Britain. The outcome of this discovery was asking known Scottish people living in Paris to help set up a not-for-profit organisation. called (Association sans but Lucratif)

The researchers returned to Scotland and set up the Scottish version known as Scotland In Europe (celebrating certain events) in 1992.

The first thing that had to be established was the Vision of why the organisation was set up, and what would be the mission statement.

The Vision was to develop the arts and cultural life of communities through exposure to