Living Heritage (2001-2005) sought to improve local community development in South East Europe through the promotion of sustainable culture and heritage projects. It offered grants, training in capacity-building skills and technical assistance. Launched in Macedonia, Living Heritage operated in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria and Romania, supporting over 140 projects (covering such areas as oral and local history, folklore, museums and conservation, festivals, agriculture and the environment, contemporary art, and tourism).

In 2004-2005, the programme made a successful Culture 2000 bid.

King Baudouin Foundation - http://www.kbs-frb.be/

Mozaik – Community Development Foundation - http://www.mozaik.ba

Workshop for Civic Initiatives Foundation - http://www.wcif-bg.org

Foundation Open Society Institute – Macedonia - http://www.soros.org.mk

Romanian Environmental Partnership Foundation - http://www.epce.ro

Carpathian Foundation - http://www.carpathianfoundation.org

Living Heritage adopts a specific approach to heritage and its interaction with local communities.
Heritage is understood as a resource, a form of social capital which can contribute to the quality of life in local communities. Living Heritage was less a cultural programme than a community development scheme which used culture as a tool.

How the idea started

The idea of an initiative which would promote 'community development through cultural resources' was originally raised within the King Baudouin Foundation as a potential successor to European Heritage Days, which the Foundation had been coordinating. Comprehensive research into community-based heritage was carried out, leading to a report that was submitted to the Council of Europe in 1999. This concluded that the Council was not in a position to develop the concept further.

Since the Foundation was testing out some new approaches to heritage as part of its work in Eastern Europe, it decided to move independently towards full implementation of the initiative, partly with the aim of integrating two programmes that were already operational: one for young people at risk, another on inter-ethnic relations.

In each country, the programme was carried out through a partnership between the King Baudouin Foundation and a financial partner, such as the Soros Foundation in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria and Macedonia, and Romania's Carpathian Foundation and the Romanian Environmental Partnership Foundation. Co-funders were in charge of selecting and contracting a local NGO for the programme's implementation and of designing the best strategy for implementation. In Macedonia and Romania the same organisation was simultaneously the financial and operating partner.

The beauty of sharing knowledge

'Without transborder cooperation we would never experience the beauty of sharing knowledge.

We would never learn from each other. We would never improve our methodology, and our views on how some issues could be managed.

Regional cooperation is without any doubt very important, especially for small countries such as Macedonia. Through Living Heritage, and through the exchange of experience at regional level, I think that we all became more convinced that highlighting a culture of diversity could be a solution for many community problems. Cultural cooperation really brings people together. It is not just a phrase.'

Marijana Ivanova, Public Relations Coordinator, Foundation Open Society Institute – Macedonia

The danger of overloading

It was a mistake to overload the regional coordination of the programme with too many responsibilities. When KBF tried to delegate some tasks and involve partners more directly in the regional work, it was too late and no one was ready to take over. This also explains why the international network did not survive the end of KBF support, although it was clear from the beginning that it would be over after a fixed period. It seemed that some of the partners lost interest and did not invest enough in the joint project.

Concept and methodology behind Living Heritage

The Living Heritage programme was initially designed to foster contacts and cooperation between different players within each country. Such links were seen as vital to help overcome the isolation that community and cultural operators often felt, and to encourage the sharing of experience and ideas.

A first guideline for the implementation of the initiative was offered by the development of 10 principles for consideration in developing community-based heritage projects:

• Demonstrate local benefit
• Provide sustainable economic development
• Support voluntary commitment
• Adopt an incremental approach
• Show flexibility and responsiveness
• Make friends with the media
• Offer leadership and clear vision
• Provide accessible management
• Demonstrate openness and honesty
• Adopt a 'Dig where you stand' approach

'The approach of using principles was based on the recognition that there was a very wide range of community heritage projects. That they had different values and different approaches. And therefore that it was impossible to say there is a correct way to undertake community heritage projects. Rather, we tried to adopt the idea that if you followed a number of principles you were more likely to be successful than if you did not follow them.'

Francois Matarasso, programme consultant

In operational terms, the overall aim was to support and encourage inexperienced communities and associations in developing and running projects. This also meant carrying out intensive fieldwork to identify the most suitable actors.

Consequently, an important outcome of Living Heritage was seeing how effectively communities could work, when adequately empowered, assisted and motivated, and how their confidence grew when trusted with the management of their projects.

Lessons from experience

The identification of actors through fieldwork was not initially used in Romania, due to the reservations of the programme partners. Instead, a call for proposals was launched, unfortunately with poor results. Later on, Romania also adopted the fieldwork approach and the number of approved projects doubled.

Support tool: residential workshops

Because the programme was targeted at people with limited experience of running projects, residential workshops were organised. The success of the workshops was mainly due to the fact that they were not abstract. Rather than trying to train participants in the theory of community development, they focused on people’s specific goals, e.g. helping partners and project teams to clarify their thinking and acquire a consistent frame of reference (shared ownership of ideas, methods and values); giving access to simple, practical and transferable knowledge drawn from the experience of existing projects.

A lot of the training was formal, especially in craft and art skills. But some was also informal, arising from the process of being involved in the project.