The project “I Live Here in the Friuli Dolomites, a UNESCO World Heritage Site” is part of the training and educational programme promoted by the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation. It is run in partnership with the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Dolomiti Friulane Natural Park and the Cooperativa STAF, and supervised by the Scientific Manager Professor Andrea Guaran, from the University of Udine and the representative of the region of Friuli in the Research and Education Operating Network, coordinated by the Autonomous Province of Trento.
It is an educational project aimed at the students of the schools of Ampezzo, Maniago, Meduno and Montereale Valcellina located in the area of Friuli that is part of the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its aim is to promote and value the area and also to encourage and affectionate attachment to it by raising awareness not only of the privileges but also of the responsibilities that go with living in a place designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as is evident in the title “I Live Here”.
The project got started in the autumn of 2017, with the initial training courses aimed at teachers, and the concluding events, at which the work done for the project was presented, took place on the mornings of Tuesday 5 and of Friday 8 June, the former at Teatro Verdi in Maniago for the Pordenone area and the latter at the Ciasa dai Fornés of Forni di Sopra for the Udine area. In between these times, courses of study were held to discover and raise awareness of the various environmental, cultural, anthropological, geological and other aspects of the area in which the young people live and which may well be, at least to the youngest ones, as yet unknown.
Some thirty classes from both primary and junior high schools were involved and at the two final morning sessions the students, led by their teachers, presented the results of the work they had done for the project over the previous months at school, their well thought-out presentations showing great originality and notable communications skills.
The two presentations were attended by the President and the General Manager of the Dolomiti Friulane Natural Park, Gianandrea Grava and Graziano Danelin, by many local mayors and councillors from the municipalities involved in the project and by school managers, all bearing witness to the attention paid to the area’s youngest citizens and values they possess and are able to communicate if they are given the right opportunities and channels in which to express themselves.
One factor evident in all the work carried out for the project is the value of care for the natural environment and all its features and for the traditions preserved in each locality. It is only through this caring attitude that it will be possible to maintain the individual character and personality of each of the valleys of the Friuli Dolomites in keeping with their universal value implicit in their status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.