Location of the initiative:
ESTONIA
Relation to Strategy 21 Recommendations:
K3 - Encourage creativity to capture the attention of the heritage audience
Brief description of the initiative:
For 15 years already, thematic years have been organised by Estonian Ministry of Culture to focus public attention on a specific cultural sphere. In 2013 we celebrated Year of Cultural Heritage. The year focused on questions: What is heritage? How is it born? Who does it belong to and what does it have to do with me? Most of the activities of the year were initiated locally; there were a few centrally organized projects. One of the most successful ones was called Railways lead to heritage. It was organized in cooperation with museums and the railway company. The railway company provided free transportation on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays to school classes and their teacher provided that they had registered in advance that they are travelling to a museum. The cost of travelling is often an obstacle that hinders especially people from the poorer rural areas to visit heritage and museums in cities. So called museum tours or packages were put together to help the teachers plan these trips. Al in all over 6700 schoolchildren had a chance to visit museums outside their home. (The number may not seem large but please bear in mind that there are only 1,3 million people in Estonia.) Numerous training courses, workshops, seminars etc. were organized. The national Year of Cultural Heritage was very visible, it was constantly reflected in the media and it raised a lot of discussion and awareness. The homepage is only in Estonian
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