May 2023, Adam Klups
Earlier this year, twelve students and young heritage professionals from across Europe and beyond have been selected as the 2023 cohort of the European Heritage Youth Ambassadors Programme, coordinated by Europa Nostra, The European Students’ Association for Cultural Heritage (ESACH) and The European Heritage Tribune. I was lucky to be given an opportunity to join this group of passionate young people who wish to contribute their enthusiasm and skills to promote European cultural heritage and encourage their peers to play an active role in ensuring that it is valued, protected and enjoyed. The aim of the programme is for Ambassadors to act as bridges between students and young professionals, and European cultural heritage organisations. We are encouraged to get actively involved in youth-centred and youth-led initiatives related to heritage and share our stories relevant to cultural heritage on social media.
In April, the group was invited to the Netherlands to discuss our priorities, ideas and the objectives we would like to deliver during our tenure. The meeting was organised by The European Heritage Tribune, thanks to generous funding from DutchCulture. Meeting one another, discussing our particular areas of heritage interests and our backgrounds, and how we would like to contribute to the programme was a worthwhile and valuable experience. For me personally, following the disaster of Brexit, being given an opportunity to connect with European heritage voices and initiatives was a tremendous joy. Short bios of all twelve Ambassadors can be found here: https://www.esach.org/ehya.html
Our three days in the Netherlands were packed with visits and meetings with representatives of European heritage organisations. In The Hague, we spent time with the Secretary General of Europa Nostra Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailović and her team, discussing the key role of young people as champions of cultural heritage and the future of the sector. The following day, the group visited BOEi, an organisation which has successfully repurposed dozens of Dutch buildings of heritage significance, which lost their original purpose. The same day we took part in ‘A European Career in Cultural Heritage’ event organised by Erfgoed Jong a network for young Dutch people interested in cultural heritage. On the final day, the Ambassadors visited the Heritage Lab at the Reinwardt Academy, the Amsterdam University of the Arts. A more detailed account of Ambassadors’ engagements can be found in this article published by the European Heritage Tribune: https://heritagetribune.eu/europe/empowering-the-sectors-future-heritage-youth-ambassadors-meet-in-the-hague
The European Heritage Youth Ambassadors Programme has provided a group of young heritage leaders with a platform to meet, exchange ideas and plan real action for cultural heritage. Watch this space and follow social media of the programme’s coordinating organisations for updates about our activities over the year. For my part, I look forward to getting directly involved in cultural heritage advocacy on the European level, with this superb group of future heritage leaders from the EU and beyond.
Adam is Care of Churches Team Leader at the Diocese of Gloucester, UK. He is passionate about conservation management, building conservation and adaptive reuse of historic buildings. He holds a BA in History of Art with Material Studies, and an MA in Principles of Conservation, both from UCL. Adam is a Fellow of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC) and a full member of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC).