site.bta Bulgaria-Macedonia Cultural Heritage Project Ends with Fundraising Exhibition

Bulgaria-Macedonia Cultural Heritage Project Ends with Fundraising Exhibition

Blagoevgrad, Southwestern Bulgaria, April 3 (BTA) - A
fundraising exhibition titled "Cultural Heritage Revival" was
unveiled in Blagoevgrad on Friday. It comes at the end of an
eponymous project financed by the Bulgaria-Macedonia
Cross-Border Cooperation Programme. The project was implemented
by the Macedonian municipality of Stip and the Blagoevgrad-based
 Bulgarian Regional Development Agency (BRDA).

The exhibition features ceramics, fabrics, ornaments and other
craft works made by participants in the project, embodying one
of the main ideas of the initiative: to show how the revived
cultural heritage in the cross-border region between Bulgaria
and Macedonia can serve the people of today, BRDA's Elena
Milousheva said. The main goal was to encourage young people,
particularly jobless ones, to create employment opportunities
for themselves and for others by using cultural crafts and to
start their own businesses and cross-border business ventures.
The project also produced other benefits, such as new
friendships and good ideas, Milousheva said.

Marina Mitrevska of the municipal government in Stip praised the
 results of the project as very positive, noting that young
people have been taught how to make business plans and organize
activities.

The objects displayed at the Blagoevgrad exhibition and at
another one in Stip were created in two workshops in these
towns. The people who attended the workshops gained firsthand
knowledge of cultural crafts practised in the cross-border
region and were later able to apply that knowledge.

Visitors to the exhibition can buy the works at token prices.
The proceeds will go to a daycare centre for elderly people with
 disabilities in Blagoevgrad. The exhibition in Stip raised
money for a local school for children with learning
disabilities.