KING BAUDOUIN FOUNDATION AND OSIMF

 Associations’ Development through Cultural Resources

The Living Heritage Program – Southeastern Europe Associations’ Development through cultural resources, financed by the Belgic Foundation King Baudouin, in Macedonia has started with the second phase. The pre-selection has been done and during the summer the final selection of the projects which are going to be supported in the cycle is going to be carried out.

The program, implemented in partnership with the Open Society Institute of Macedonia Foundation, has an objective to develop the capacities and the local community by promoting sustainable initiatives from the area of the cultural and natural heritage.

The Living Heritage Program, as the representative of the King Baudouin Foundation, Fabrice de Kersho said at the press conference in Skopje in June, has also been implementing in Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Romania. The experience from the pilot-phase implemented in Macedonia last 2000, was positive, with the exception of the project in Bitola, which has come across some obstacles set by the Ministry of Education. More precisely, although the project is in advanced phase and has provided a financial construction of total $200,000 (apart from OSIMF and King Baudouin, also ISC and USAID provided some financial assets) for restoration of the neo-baroque building in the center of the town, known as Pioneer’s House, the Ministry does not allow the project to be realized in that building. At the moment they are still making efforts to provide permission from the Ministry to restore the building so that a lot of non-governmental organizations from Bitola and the Pioneer’s center “Trajce Magloski” from this town could use it.

M.I.