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Cultural heritage without frontiers
How can we work together?
From 20 to 22 September 2006, a workshop took place in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, attended by a group of NGOs from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia. It was organized by the Swedish foundation Cultural Heritage Without Frontiers. The regional development workshop took place in the beautiful building of Zemski Museum in Sarajevo, which has been completely restored and renewed with support from this foundation.
The goal of the workshop was to meet the new needs for cultural cooperation in the region, as well as the growing need for closer communication, which has been identified among the civil society organizations working in the field of cultural heritage protection and promotion. The workshop in Sarajevo was organized in order to identify the concrete needs in that respect, to discuss them, to exchange experiences and to set the foundation of the future cooperation.
The key topic for discussion was raising the public awareness. The common feature of the NGOs that took part in the workshop (Macedonia was represented by The Macedonian Research Society and the Open Society Institute – Macedonia Foundation) is the work related to the cultural heritage, from different perspectives, however: education, restoration, archiving…Strengthening the public awareness is an activity which is present in all these aspects of work. Therefore, that topic was the focus of all discussions and work. One of the conclusions that came out from the workshop was that a way to raise the public awareness on the cultural heritage is the cooperation, or the networking, for which a concrete initiative was raised. Participants at the workshop agreed to establish an informal network that can be further developed and acquire a different form and status. They have also decided to establish an electronic discussion group so that they can communicate more easily in future.
The workshop gave the expected results – defining the needs of the organizations present and establishing groups that will be supported in order to strengthen their own capacities and the public awareness on protecting the cultural heritage; establishing a digital forum for dialogue and exchange of information in this area; agreeing upon a type of document containing recommendations on awareness strengthening; establishing a networking and cooperation platform; identifying other organizations from the region that might be interested in becoming part of this initiative.
The Swedish foundation Cultural Heritage Without Frontiers is a private foundation established in 1995, which works in the spirit of the Hague Convention (1954) for cultural heritage protection that was endangered by wars, natural disasters, lack of care, poverty or political and social conflicts. In 1996, this foundation initiated its first project in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and today, it is active in Kosovo (where it has a local office), in Bosnia and Herzegovina (the headquarters of the regional office is in Sarajevo), in Macedonia, Serbia and in Montenegro.
M. Ivanova |
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