For many years now, the Ecomuseum - Ecomuseo "House of batana - Casa della batana" has been a good example of community participation in the shaping of local cultural offerings and the preservation of cultural heritage, which is actively presented at the international level.
Numerous activities crowned by the entry into UNESCO's Register of good practices in 2016 continue to continue one after the other and were raised to a new level in 2020, when the Association-Associazione "Casa della batana" was accredited by the UNESCO Convention for preservation of intangible cultural heritage. In 2022, the expert manager of the Ecomuseum, Tamara Nikolić Đerić, was elected to the executive board of the Forum of UNESCO-accredited associations, where she held the position of deputy president in 2023. At the Intergovernmental Session for the Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage held in the city of Kasane in Botswana in December 2023, Nikolić Đerić's mandate was renewed and he will represent the 'House of Batana-Casa della batana' and other associations from Eastern Europe (group II) for the next two years, according to UNESCO election rules.
In addition to daily involvement in the coordination of the Forum, the year 2023 marked the 20th anniversary of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, which allowed the Ecomuseum to promote itself through the activities of its Forum, also through numerous other platforms with which it continues to confirm its distinguished status on the international scene.
A very intense autumn in the field of international professional cooperation began in mid-October in San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy, where, with the financial support of the County of Istria-Region of Istria, the expert manager of the Ecomuseum-Ecomuseo "Kuća o batani-Casa della batana" Tamara Nikolić Đerić participated in 28. Forum of the Association of Mediterranean Maritime Museums (AMMM) on the topic of integration of gastronomy into eco-museum practice. There, she presented the experiences of the gastronomic heritage programs of the Ecomuseum-Ecomuseo "House of batana-Casa della batana", which are held in the traditional Rovinj tavern Spacio Matika, and brought closer the process of preserving and registering the art of sailing with Latin and main sails along the Croatian coast in the Register of Cultural Properties of the Republic of Croatia . The happy fact is that the County of Istria recognized the efforts of the Association and Institution "House of Batana - Casa della batana" which manage the Ecomuseum, and this year it was also granted financial support for international cooperation.
Tamara Nikolić Đerić presented the experiences of the Ecomuseum - Ecomuseo "House of batana - Casa della batana" at the ICOM SEE conference on sustainable development, which took place in mid-October in Bucharest on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage. During October, she was also a guest in Široki Brijeg, where, as the deputy president of the UNESCO NGO Forum, she spoke about the activities of the Forum and the opportunities it provides for the development and promotion of associations in Southeast Europe in the context of the preservation of intangible cultural heritage.
About the activities from the end of 2023, which will continue to a greater extent in 2024, Tamara Nikolić Đerić says: "International cooperation is an extremely important aspect of the activities of the Ecomuseum-Ecomuseo "House of batana-Casa della batana" because we want to present our work as an example of successful heritage practice and in this sense position Rovinj-Rovigno, Istria and Croatia We are particularly proud of participating in the meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Botswana dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage, where I, as deputy president, had the role of coordinator of numerous accompanying events organized by the Forum. In addition to the intense October and December, I would like to mention that we also started September with the first official meeting of the partners of the Adriatic PorTLand project financed through the INTERREG Italy-Croatia program, where the "House of batana-Casa della batana" institution took on the role of leading partner. until now, whose focus was exclusively on coastal maritime heritage, Adriatic PortLand aims to develop a structured plan for the integration of the cultural and touristic offers of the coast and the river hinterland through the valorization of traditional navigation that has connected these communities throughout history.
In addition to Adriatic PorTLand, the Association was also approved for the first time for a four-year Creative Europe project. I have just returned from the Kick-off meeting held in Mechelen, Belgium, where we agreed with partners from Italy, Poland, Sweden, and, of course, Belgium, the methodological framework of the first research that will begin in April, concerning the ethical and sustainable integration of intangible cultural heritage into tourism offers of the cities involved.
On this occasion, I would certainly like to mention a very important project at the world level carried out in 2022 called "Crafting the sea" in which my collaborators were Luca Privileggio, also a member of our Association, and Mirta Smodlaka Tanković as a representative of the Center for Sea Research in Rovinj - Ruđer Bošković Institute. "Crafting the sea" is part of the global project "Sea beyond project on ocean sustainability as a precautionary measure in the face of COVID 19", which the Ecomuseum - Ecomuseo "House of batana - Casa della batana" and the Sea Research Center in Rovinj-Institute Ruđer Bošković joined global efforts to preserve the sea in the context of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021 - 2030). Under the auspices of the UNESCO Regional Office for Science and Culture in Europe, the project aimed to promote local knowledge about the sea and educate the youngest fellow citizens about the importance of the sea for the future of the planet," emphasized Tamara Nikolić Đerić.
All international activities and projects can be followed on the Facebook page of the Ecomuseum - Ecomuseo 'House of batana - Casa della batana' and the official website of the Ecomuseum www.batana.org.