Montada project launches book on heritage in school

A book on school and cultural heritage published by the Barcelona-based Montada Project will seek to raise the interest of children and adolescents on the importance of the safeguard of their local architectural treasures. The book sums up the guidelines drafted by the group of specialists in 2009 and the results of a trial project carried out in 2010 in over 20 education centres set up in the schools of six cities which took part in the Montada Project - Salé and Marrakech in Morocco; Sousse and Kairouan in Tunisia; Dellys and Ghardaia in Algeria. The project involved 500 students aged 8 to 16 to promote their knowledge of their local architectural heritage. The activities carried out in the trial project and summed up in the book 'Heritage and School' will continue to be taught in the next few years in several schools across Maghreb to implement the methodology selected and to guarantee the continuity of the plan. "Transmitting the values of traditional architecture to children is a sure investment for the future since these are the generations who will have to create a new, more sustainable management of historic sites", the director of the Montada Project, Xavier Casanovas, told ANSAmed. The book described the laboratories carried out by students and their results. "In the workshop's experience on the traditional architecture in historic city centres, little boys and girls brought their personal vision in a fresh regard over the potential of the architecture heritage, and voiced through their small projects the desire to convert abandoned area into spaces for leisure and fun", Montserrat Villaverde, who is in charge of Montada Kids, told ANSAmed. The project is part of the Euromed Heritage 4 and is co-funded by the European Union with the objective of safeguarding and renovating the architectural heritage to promote the Mediterranean's historic and cultural identity through the involvement of political leaders, schools and local populations.