Olive Council Invites Proposals for 'World Olive Day'

The International Olive Council is propos­ing grants for the financ­ing of activ­i­ties and events aimed at cel­e­brat­ing ​‘World Olive Day’ in mem­ber coun­tries. Activities could include ini­tia­tives like sem­i­nars or trade fairs show­cas­ing top­ics like the health ben­e­fits of olive prod­ucts, olive pro­duc­tion and the envi­ron­ment, the his­tory of olive grow­ing, and the olive econ­omy.

Activities can also include the pro­duc­tion of pro­mo­tional mate­ri­als like brochures and books. Planned activ­i­ties should also include a press con­fer­ence or sim­i­lar event pub­li­ciz­ing World Olive Day, and must be car­ried out between November 23 and 30, 2016.

The United States, where the cel­e­bra­tion would fall on Thanksgiving week­end, is not a mem­ber of the International Olive Council.

The grants can amount to a max­i­mum of €4,000 per mem­ber coun­try, which can cover up to 50 per­cent of the activity’s total cost. The rest of the bud­get must be cov­ered by either the ben­e­fi­cia­ry’s own resources or con­tri­bu­tions from third par­ties. The dead­line for appli­ca­tions is October 14, 2016.

In the most recent edi­tion of its monthly newslet­ter, the IOC out­lined the objec­tives of the cel­e­bra­tion of World Olive Day as three­fold: to raise aware­ness of the impor­tance of the rela­tion­ship between olive grow­ing and the envi­ron­ment; to high­light the health ben­e­fits of olive oil; and to put the spot­light on the role of the IOC as the orga­ni­za­tion respon­si­ble for admin­is­ter­ing the International Agreement on Olive Oil and Table Olives.

This ini­tia­tive stems from one of the guide­lines approved at the IOC’s 26^th extra­or­di­nary ses­sion held in Madrid in March 2016 for the next four years of the orga­ni­za­tion, which aims to increase IOC vis­i­bil­ity by cel­e­brat­ing World Olive Day on November 26 each year in IOC mem­ber coun­tries.

• International Olive Council