Cultural heritage for millennials

Millennials from six European countries, including Cyprus, will work together to promote cultural heritage among younger generations in a new Erasmus+ project.

How can the development and understanding of cultural heritage sites as a direct expression of the complexity of historical, social and cultural contexts, as well as part of a wider and more complex relationship with the built and natural environment, be promoted to younger generations? How can dialogue and interaction between young people and professionals managing heritage sites in our cities and countries be promoted?

These are some of the questions the CoolTour – Millennials for Cultural Heritage project intends to answer, said the Cyprus university of technology (Tepak) which will be among the bodies participating in the project.

Launched in March 2022, the project aims to bring together cultural heritage sites, experts, universities, research centres, cultural organisations, communication experts, student organisations and young people from six European countries, namely Italy, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovenia, Cyprus, Hungary and Croatia.

During the 24 months of the project, the partners will work together to design two key tools, which will be tested and evaluated in the participating countries and therefore available at EU level.

These concern the CoolTour digital platform and the CoolTour toolkit for heritage managers.

Aiming to promote the active participation of millennials and pool their experience to create content related to cultural heritage, the CoolTour platform is a hybrid online social media application that allows users to create and share content related to the archaeological sites involved in the project.

Reflections on cultural heritage presented in vlogs, blogs, will be used to invent new ways to promote cultural heritage, such as creating heritage-inspired emoticon, creating “youth heritage” trails as well as the presentation of cultural heritage from the perspective of young people, to strengthen the link between cultural heritage and the younger generations.

COOLTOUR toolkit for heritage managers is an innovative methodology aimed at making archaeological site managers understand the importance of using technology to create a dialogue with younger generations.

The project was launched during the first partners’ meeting held in Limassol, on the premises of the Cyprus University of Technology, in May 2022.

While the project website is under construction, for any additional information you can email Brodoto, the organisation responsible for project communication, at [email protected].