This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.

This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein

“Adopt Your Heritage” Project Newsletter

Issue 1 – May 2010

www.adyourhe.com

Project financed by the European Commission

Increasing awareness and encouraging active participation in understanding different cultures.

2nd Project Meeting - Cittá di Castello, ITALY – 22-25 April 2010

The second meeting of the project ADHER – Adopt Your

Heritage was held in Città di Castello at Villa Montesca and

was attended by 40 participants coming from Turkey,

Romania, Greece, Slovenia and Lithuania. The participants

were welcomed by the representatives of the Centro Studi e

Formazione Villa Montesca, the Italian partner of this Learning

Partnership project funded by the Grundvig Programme.

During the first day partners and learners presented their own

institutions and countries focusing on their culture heritages. In

particular, the hosting partner supplied detailed information on

the Region’s cultural heritage stressing the issue of public awareness as regards its protection

presenting the educational tools used to improve the knowledge of cultural heritage and its role in local

development. The meeting was also an opportunity for exchanging good practices and training methods

of the participating countries.

A moment of the meeting in Villa Montesca

Partners’ internal meeting in the library of Villa Montesca

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.

This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein

The activities in agenda were organised with the view of alternating the partners’ interventions with social

and cultural activities with the participation of staff and learners.

Therefore, discussions and debates regarding the project’s activities and its steps were spaced out with

guided tours to historical and artistic Umbrian sites. The Villa, were the Centro Studi is housed, belonged

to Baron and Baroness Franchetti and is a heritage site since when the owners organised the first school

for the farmers’ children who could not attend State schools due to the distance or other difficulties.

These schools became workshops for educational experiments, which brought about some revolutionary

innovations based on the observation of Nature and the use of language as a tool for social dialogue.

In 1905 Baroness Alice called Maria Montessori to organise with her a seminar, which gave life to the

first publication of the Method for Scientific Pedagogy, universally known as the Montessori Method.

Today the Villa has been fully restored and in 2001, one hundred years after that first experience, a

number of educational institutions, together with the Local Authority of Città di Castello, formed an

educational and professional training organisation to continue, in the spirit of the Franchetti institutions,

the research and the experimentation on new teaching methods.

Both partners and learners of the project visited Palazzo

Albizzini Foundation with its library and photographic archive

where all the documentation regarding the works of Alberto Burri

and its bibliography are kept.

Participants went also on a guided tour to Assisi were they

learnt how the Region’s cultural heritage is managed and

valorised.

The meeting held in Città di Castello was an opportunity for all

partners to share the project’s main objective, therefore

improving reciprocal understanding and dialogue among

different cultures as well as the level of respect people have for

their own and other

nation’s cultural heritage.

The ADHER ‘ADopt Your HERitage’ project was also presented to

students attending the post-graduate course ‘Registrar ’ organised

by the Centro Studi. The course raised a considerable level of

interest among the students in view of their possible future

involvement in the project’s activities in order to create important

synergies with a project of such an important international level

and acquire an in-depth knowledge of both the sector’s issues and

cultural interaction.

The project’s partners and learners will meet again in mid-June at

the Mewcat, Milos Educational Womens Collaboration for

Activities in Tourism in Milos, Greece.

Palazzo del Podestà, Città di Castello

Project partners in Assisi