During the closing and presentation of the results of the Project “Professional Development in Competition Intercultural in Higher Education Institutions America Latin America and the Caribbean (PROFIC), Nelson Zárate, rector of the Technological University of El Salvador (UTEC), co-coordinator of the project, local partner and host of the event, reported that PROFIC has allowed UTEC to participate and develop more than 40 international projects with partners from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and Asia.

He indicated that PROFIC has not only strengthened the projects of internationalization of the beneficiary universities in Argentina, El Salvador and Mexico, but also has impacted their academic and student communities, who have benefited from the co-financing of projects, in addition to the lessons learned, said Zárate.

He also added that this project encouraged interculturality, which is a key factor for coexistence.
between different societies, promoting the values ​​of tolerance, respect and solidarity, which
they contribute to what they want to call global citizenship, regarding the identity and rights of peoples.
In his intervention, Dane Lukic, coordinator of the PROFIC project and researcher at Glasgow Caledonian
University (GCU), asserted that this initiative seeks to break down myths and prejudices in competitions
intercultural in which they work with teachers to provide the necessary tools to their students.
students to work, study and live with different cultures and use the cultural diversity of their
environment as an advantage for innovation.
For his part, Roberto Escalante Semerena, general secretary of the Latin American University Union
and the Caribbean (UDUAL), described the PROFIC project as one more step in an issue of great relevance for the
society and for universities, he indicated that globalism and nationalism are anticultural, since they do not
promote cultural integration and regretted that universities do not teach how to be interculturally
able.
“For UDUAL, the main function of the university is to promote society as a whole and work in
favor of the most unprotected in LAC, is to be socially relevant and useful to solve problems
therefore, this project has a fundamental significance for LAC, all of us who participate
we are committed to using what we have learned in this project to go much deeper into
what Latin American and Caribbean universities need to do to say we are culturally fair
and equitable”, assured Escalante.
While Rubén Javier Ruffi Gómez, Argentina’s ambassador to El Salvador, stressed that the objectives
of PROFIC are designed specifically for the times that are currently lived in LAC, as
are the inequalities that affect the most vulnerable sectors: children, women, communities
LGTBI+, older adults “the depth of these inequalities has been revealed and it is
Given this, we must develop, both from the public governmental sphere, and from the academy
and society as a whole, the deconstruction of stereotypes, which will allow us to achieve a profound
socio-cultural transformation, it is a fundamental issue for us to advance in true equality
that it is a human rights issue and an essential condition for social justice.
Argentina understands that higher education is a human and social right and that it must be guaranteed,
he concluded it.
Also participating in the event were Francois Roudie, ambassador of the European Union; Mario Raphael Olmos
Argueta, rector of the Don Bosco University (UDB); Ricardo Cardona, Deputy Minister of Education Words of
representative Ministry of Science and Technology (MINEDUCYT) Republic of El Salvador; Maria Yarosh of the
University of Groningen, the Netherlands; Valeria Suárez, from the National University of La Plata, Argentina; Pink
Idalia Ramírez, from the Technological University of El Salvador; Thomas Peschken of the Glasgow Caledonian
University, UK; Elena Golovushkina, from the National University of La Plata, Argentina, and Francois
Roudie, ambassador of the European Union in El Salvador.