After a successful implementation of several heritage education initiatives developed within European Heritage Days 2016, Romanian schools are set for even more inventive projects this year!

In an effort to continue the raising awareness of cultural heritage among the young and further enhance their participation in heritage discovery, two initiatives will be launched in the autumn of 2017. Both developed in partnership with European institutions, the initiatives aim to involve pupils and students of all ages across the entire country.

Young people will have a new opportunity to re-discover their local heritage and find out more about the unique values of their local heritage, as well as of their regional or national traditions. Through a series of engaging youth-oriented activities, the projects will help them develop a new sense of heritage and of their own identity.

World Heritage in Young Hearts

Once again, European Heritage Days will bring an opportunity for Romanian teachers, professors and instructors to discuss heritage in education through a workshop designed to enable them to better engage their students in heritage exploration.

The workshop titled World Heritage in Young Hearts is a non-formal project that will be held on 5th October 2017 and whose final objective is to create a set of resources that can be made available to teachers to be trained in conducting classes, history, plastic arts, Romanian literature, and foreign languages.

The workshop addresses teachers in all pre-university education levels and will engage them in working with tools and resources offered by UNESCO in the field of promoting and safeguarding the world’s and national heritage. The end result will be the development of an outline of an online manual and an optional course for high-school humanity classes based on the UNESCO Teacher's Kit and other resources made available by UNESCO.

Cultural Journey in Your Town

Building up on this project, a new heritage education initiative will be implemented in November, 2017, when students will have a chance to participate in a nation-wide heritage-inspired competition.

Titled Cultural Journey in Your Town, the national high school student contest will encourage students to look for cultural heritage objects in their city and take selfies at historic spots. The key idea of the contest is to make material heritage of Romania closer to the young and an integral part of their everyday life.

The contest encourages participants to send an artistic photo: a selfie in front of a heritage object or a photo processed with the help of graphic applications and a small description.

With these two exciting new projects, Romania will open another exciting year of cultural heritage exploration for young people. Coupled with the successful last year’s initiatives, the workshop and the photo contest will further establish heritage as an integral and enaging part of education.