„Heritage for another century”, a project dedicated to the protection of heritage buildings

A century after the Great Union, the National Institute for Cultural Research and Training is implementing the project ”Heritage for another century”, financed by the Romanian Government, through the Ministry of Culture and National Identity, within the funding programme for the projects, activities and events dedicated to the Centenary of the Great Union.

The project’s aim is to change the  working logic of the institutions in the field of national immovable cultural heritage protection, from a reactive into a preventive one, by educating the wide public on the necessity of protecting this heritage and the advantages we can benefit by. The main target public of the project are young people between 14 and 18 years old.

As a matter of fact, in order to make sure that our message reaches them and is well received, we shall conduct the first ever nationwide sociological study measuring the youth’s attitude towards the national cultural heritage. Another issue of interest to us is to find exactly when and why graffiti started turning from street-art into vandalism. Using the results of this study, we shall conceive and set-up a digital manual for heritage education, which we shall present in the high schools of seven municipalities in Romania.  The digital manual will also be available for online downloading, on the project’s web page. If the feed-back we receive is positive, we plan to extend this project and, why not, to turn it into a permanent one.

In parallel with the activity focused on the youth, we shall develop a mainly online awareness campaign on the necessity of protecting the historical monuments, within which we shall produce a mini-series of documentaries dedicated to the buildings connected to the Great Union – either buildings where Great-Union related actions were performed or memorial houses of the Union makers.

We often hear discussions about the importance of the national cultural heritage, about historical monuments, yet how many of us do realise the number of both economic and – particularly – spiritual potential benefits of the protection of this heritage? Now is our chance to build the society we desire for the next 100 years!