ECHO – Cultural Heritage for Inclusion and Participation

Whilst cultural heritage has been defined as something inherited from the past, it is in many ways a contemporary and “living” cultural resource in Europe. Supporting and mobilising local actors facilitating society integration and social inclusion through the accessibility of cultural heritage will lead to an inclusive growth with a well-functioning democratic, inclusive society based on solidarity and equal access to culture and related services. Both the preservation and valorisation of cultural heritage open up considerable opportunities for local and regional development. Culture is a key driver of creativity, which plays a significant role in establishing an innovative economy. People with disadvantaged backgrounds have lower access to training and cultural activities, as it requires financial resources, information about the opportunities and many times also encouragement to participate. A very large majority take pride in cultural heritage, whether it is located in their own region or country, or in another European country. Our organisations have solid experience in providing cultural and educational activities.

Our organisations focused on the inclusion of people with disadvantaged backgrounds: people from declining rural areas, migrants and national minorities, elderly, among others. We implemented our activities mainly in person, but we also established an online training programme focused on European intangible cultural heritage. We also carried out one webinar designed by each partner and one extra for the whole project. The project offered new high-quality learning opportunities and skills development for adults through creativity and arts by utilising the social and educational value of the European cultural heritage, facilitating intergenerational learning and encouraging new businesses based on cultural heritage. The general objectives of the project are: 1. To increase the accessibility of training in culture and arts; 2. To raise the opportunities to explore European intangible cultural heritage by using digital means; 3. To promote social inclusion of people with disadvantaged background through culture and arts; 4. To encourage intergenerational learning and transfer of traditional skills; 5. To motivate and empower people to start businesses based on intangible cultural heritage.

The ECHO Training programme "European Cultural Heritage" which includes a collection of workshops presenting the cultural heritage of each local area involved in the project and providing an opportunity to explore European cultural heritage for everyone, an online guide for starting entrepreneurship (including social entrepreneurship) based in cultural heritage and an interactive educational online game based on the training programme. The ECHO On-line learning platform provides a learning space to be used by any organisation or individual all over Europe and ensure the sustainability of the project. The on-line platform includes the Training programme produced in the project (guide, workshop scenarios) and additional on-line learning resources, such as webinars, discussion forums and an interactive educational online game to facilitate continuing learning, keep the interest of the users and engage them in learning activities. The project results are available in English, Polish, Greek, Italian, German, Portuguese and Latvian. The ECHO Training programme "European Cultural Heritage" includes local and international training and covers at least 56 hours (conceived as online and offline workshops and assignments). It has been delivered in each target country, in a time-span of 12 months. In total over 90 unique persons attended the online and offline training. The training programme included at least 3 local workshops (online or offline) in each country. Additionally, several online courses have been implemented by the partnership introducing each local areas cultural heritage (festivals, foods and handicrafts) to participants from other European countries. Every partner carried out one course, which is available on our learning platform. After these courses we carried out a special session how to starting a business (including social entrepreneurship) based on cultural heritage. In the final months of the project we organised a short-term international training of learners in Portugal to jointly test the ECHO Training programme and On-line platform. Adult learners and trainers from all partner countries took part in this testing. We also organised an European cultural creativity competition, inspired by the ECHO Training programme. After we completed the work on the ECHO Training programme and On-line learning platform, we organised local dissemination events in all partner countries/regions and the final conference in Portugal.

The project produced two project results. The project created a training programme "European Cultural Heritage" and an interactive online learning platform (including an educational online game), which will exploited the European cultural heritage as a tool for creating new businesses, promoting society integration and social inclusion and combating disadvantages. The general objectives of the project are: 1. To increase the accessibility of training in culture and arts; 2. To raise the opportunities to explore European intangible cultural heritage by using digital means; 3. To promote social inclusion of people with disadvantaged background through culture and arts; 4. To encourage intergenerational learning and transfer of traditional skills; 5. To motivate and empower people to start businesses based on intangible cultural heritage. More than 15 adult trainers increased their knowledge and skills during the project, 30 learners (people from disadvantaged backgrounds) took part in the blended mobility and at more than 90 participants (people from disadvantaged backgrounds) took part in the piloting of the training programme. More than 300 people not directly involved in the project benefited from the project in each country, participating in the dissemination events. The exchange of experience and the creation of the online platform increased the accessibility of training, raised the opportunities to explore European cultural heritage, encouraged intergenerational learning and transfer of traditional skills and motivated and empowered people to start business based on cultural heritage. The transnational approach of the project led to a deeper mutual understanding and cooperation in Europe. We have 1151 registered users on out Learning website, which studied the contents of the trainings. We also enables the possibility to read the contents without registration, so the number is higher.