"It is never too much talking with one another!" -

The Gorlice Learning Quest became the talk of town in Binarowa and Sekowa!

The task of the Heritage Alive!-Team in Gorlice really was a challange:  helping to avoid the exodus of the young generation from the region. The Learning Quest targeted at young inhabitants, as it is their identification with the region that will be extremely important for its future development. After the evaluation of the Learning Quest the team can state that the cultural value of their region became meaningful and attractive to the participating students - and not only to them.

Involving local community

One of the most important effects was the voluntary participation of the local community. The information about the project spread across the villages, and many individual people offered their help. The project, initially a small school enterprise, soon became a common activity of the entire village and its people. Many of them really discovered the treasures of their motherland and realized how precious and special the churches are. People started looking at their village from a different perspective and now they are proud of their place of living and aware of the importance of the churches.

This inspiring and creative mood is the product of hard work

During the process of realization big problems appeared on almost every stage of the project. At the very beginning, it was difficult to communicate the ambitious objectives of “Heritage Alive!” to the local schools and other stakeholders. When the students had to be involved and motivated the regional situation turned out to be a problem. Binarowa and Sękowa are both small villages, situated in quite a distance to bigger towns. Therefore, students had no direct access to archives and historical sources. Even libraries and museums in Gorlice or Biecz are not equipped enough to fulfil all the requirements of the project. It is not surprising, therefore, that students were not sure if they could handle the work. Later, in the trial phase the students had to handle a badly adjusted computer network. However, the students tried to use every computer in the vicinity; they visited each other’s houses, or went to internet cafes in nearby towns. Moreover, time as well as money was tight at any time. Nevertheless, the Heritage Alive!-team as well as the participating students took each obstacle as a challenge and led the project to bigger success than expected.

IT made people join and authorities reacted

The local community became even more integrated, when people started working together to solve the problem concerning access to the Internet. Everybody realized how important modern technologies are nowadays, and the village authorities decided to modernize the existing network. This kind of financial help is very important for the school. Another positive aspect of the project is the cooperation between schools in Binarowa and Sękowa. Both schools now are aware of their situation and their great potential based on the churches and their World Heritage Status. The schools decided to continue their cooperation.

Young people like getting involved

The project greatly broadened students’ knowledge about the buildings from the UNESCO list in many aspects: religious, historical, cultural, or even architectural. Heritage Alive! attracted the students with its unusual and original character and proved that it is very important to offer young people something different but strict school curriculum, something that truly would inspire them.