Wednesday, 28 January 2026
On behalf of the North West Tertiary Education Cluster, Derry City and Strabane District Council and Donegal County Council, we would like to share with you an update on the Derry City and Strabane UNESCO Learning City Initiative. Since Derry City and Strabane District Council successfully became a member of UNESCO’s Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC) in July 2019 under the Learning City name of ‘Derry City and Strabane Region’, it has always been a goal to expand the status to the wider North West Region to include our close partners in Donegal.
After discussions with UNESCO, we are delighted to relaunch the UNESCO Learning City Initiative and announce that we are expanding our status to the North West Region to become the ‘North West Learning City Region’.
As part of this exciting relaunch, we will be holding a 1-day Lifelong Learning Festival around the North West Region (Derry City & Strabane District Council Area and Donegal County Council Area) on Thursday 5th March 2026. As the UNESCO Learning City Initiative promotes lifelong learning for all, we want the 1-day festival to showcase all forms of learning, both formal and informal, for all ages throughout the region.
To make our inaugural North West Learning City Region Lifelong Learning Festival a success, we are encouraging as many organisations as possible to get involved in providing an event for the 1-day festival, your event can be anything from workshops, classes, performances, exhibits and much more. You may already have an activity taking place on Thursday 5th March 2026 (World Book Day) or have an idea for one, either way, we would love to promote them as part of the Lifelong Learning Festival to all our networks.
The criteria for the festival is that all events must be:
To provide an event as part of the North West Learning City Region Lifelong Learning Festival on the 5th March 2026, please fill out the application below by Friday 6th February 2026 at 5pm.
There may be some funding available to support your event, if you require funding, please outline this in your application.
You can find the application HERE.
If you have any queries, please contact Collette Cassidy, Ulster University Development Officer, by email - c.cassidy1@ulster.ac.uk.
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