A great surprise at the end of December 2023
In December 2023 we received the news of being chosen as one of the finalists in the Innovator of the Year Award organised by the institution Future for Religious Heritage.
It made us so proud due to the fact that Patrimonio para Jovenes is a small association and we competed against large entities and projects. About the winner and the finalists you can read here
And the congress was held in Cracow, which was another surprise and joy. Patrimonio para Jovenes is 12 years old and during this time whenever we had a chance to participate in an international congress, it was always in Madrid.
Being shortlisted as finalists brought us a kind of obligation to travel to Poland although it meant a big effort in terms of time and money.
After considering it carefully, we thought it was worth travelling. It was an opportunity to meet people from all walks of life working on religious heritage. During the congress we had to explain that Patrimonio para Jovenes does not dedicate itself exclusively to religious buildings.
Cracow has also a special sentimental value to us. It is a city that has a lot to do with the life of the pope Saint John Paul II, who is one of the patrons of Patrimonio para Jovenes.
Another decision was about who to send to the congress. We were thinking of some of the young people that have been working on the project about monasteries over these years, among whom are: the architect Lucia Ruiz Ullate, Jose Luis Martínez Arce, Pablo Ramos Aguado or Pablo Beorlegui and Miguel Arguibide.
Pablo and Miguel are now working very hard on the edition of “ETERNO – the documentary about what we were never taught”. A preview can be seen here
An article about this is also available on the FRH web here
All the aforementioned people have worked hard, with creativity and professionalism, although all of them are very young (in their twenties) and the oldest one is 33 years old.
Unfortunately, not everybody has a good level of English, and the ones with high level did not have free days to travel to Cracow. Nevertheless, all of them are the true protagonists of this award and you can see them in many entries of this blog.
We would like to give special thanks to the volunteers of summer 2023 and June 2024. You can read more about these activities here.
The pleasure of meeting new people
Not only is the city amazing, but the people we met there. Special thanks to Rocio Sanchez and Jordi Mallarach
Chiara Curti, Pilar Gómez Bahamonde, Melanie Kay Smith, Maria Arno, among many other people.
Lilian Grootswagers was the person in charge of presenting the winner’s and finalists’ projects.
And here we are with Jordi and Rocio and the rest of the awardees.
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