07/01/2019

During the year 2006, the Commission to Preserve National Monuments in cooperation with the American Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina launched a new feature of the campaign for the protection of heritage entitled "My Bosnia and Herzegovina - My Heritage". Campaign activities have been mainly carried out within the implementation activities of the project for the protection of national monuments, which have been funded from the Special Fund of the US ambassador.

Primary objectives of the project "My Bosnia and Herzegovina - My Heritage" are to raise awareness of children in primary schools about the importance of cultural heritage and to encourage responsibility for its preservation by highlighting the richness and uniqueness of Bosnian tradition and culture, and the fact that unique cultural heritage is indispensable and integral part of our identity.

Throughout the project activities, such as lectures at schools and sites of national monuments, children acquire and improve their knowledge about the cultural heritage focusing on ancient cities, architecture, artwork, crafts, oral traditions and other. In addition to primary schools, some galleries, local history museums and the Center for Children with Special Needs took part in this project.

As a part of the project, a competition for the best artistic, literary or scale model work on the theme My BiH - My Heritage was implemented, which was followed by awarding diplomas to the top-performing students and schools. Awarding diplomas and prizes was based on criteria established by the expert jury, namely: the number of works, the diversity of techniques and themes, originality of work, work focused on the legacy of the region, quality of work and the like. The prizes were awarded at ceremonies accompanied by exhibitions and appropriate programs, which were organized in several BiH cities-participants in the project.

So far, the project involved more than eighty schools from twenty cities in BiH. Contribution to this campaign gave more than 10,000 primary school students from Bosnia and Herzegovina, pedagogical institutes and other institutions in charge of education.

Within the project, the interactive web portal My Bosnia and Herzegovina - My Heritage was designed and integrated as a part of the official web site of the Commission, which provides to students a possibility to access the basic data of cultural heritage through the game, and at the same time support their teachers with materials for the teaching program (www.kons.gov.ba/mojabih).