UNESCO HISTORIC
CITIES, HERITAGE
OF PEACE
CITTA' STORICHE
UNESCO, PATRIMONIO
DI PACE
The Project
The Urbino Rotary Club, sponsored and supported by Rotary International District 2090, organized the first conference of the historical European centers declared by the UNESCO World Heritage Site that was held in the ducal city on 20-21 April 2013.
The Convention for the Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage, signed by 175 Member States of UNESCO in 1972, was a historic step for the preservation of monuments, landscapes, values and traditions that belong to the planet and the protection from which transcend national interests.
We have the moral commitment to ensure that the planetary patrimony is transferred intact to future generations respecting what is stated in’art. Article 5 of the Convention, “To ensure the most effective protection and conservation possible and the most active promotion of cultural and natural heritage who has been entrusted to us.
From these premises came the first UNESCO HISTORIC CITIES conference, PATRIMONIO DI PACE’, a title to be in tune with the slogan of President Rotary International 2012-2013 Sakuji Tanaka ‘PEACE THROUGH SERVICE’M. The first conference because immediately there was a commitment for the event to be itinerant and lasted in time every two years, touching the historical European centers declared by the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The main objective of the conference is to build, in consultation with all the clubs involved, a kind of vademecum that shows the characteristics, problems, needs but also the potential that every historical center expresses.
A synergy and collaboration between Rotary Clubs that are committed to the following common goals:
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Rotary Clubs included in the identified Unesco sites will undertake to support the guidelines that Unesco disseminates each year;
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The Rotary Clubs will take every year all possible initiatives to support the image of their historical centres in accordance with the principles established by the UNESCO;
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To this end, experts from the Unesco Central Office will be asked to take part in the work of the conference in order to obtain information on the guidelines, projects and initiatives, the opportunities which the international body is planning for the development of historical centres;
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Enhance and promote the sites declared World Heritage by the UNESCO by building a network of relationships between the Rotary Clubs present in the cities involved in the project.
To this have been associated of the activities that would contribute to leave trace of the undertaken engagements:
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Each Club builds a guide (paper and digital) based on the descriptions and indicators used by the UNESCO to declare the historical site World Heritage. The guide must be associated with a map with specific itineraries that highlight the main monumental, historical and environmental emergencies identified by the UNESCO. A part of the guide must contain a series of practical information so that the tourist (rotariano and non) can organize his journey in the most comfortable way;
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All the Clubs contribute to the creation of a website, accessible through a link to be inserted in their own site, where all the contents of the various digital guides produced are gathered. But it will become the archive of all the documents and studies dealing with the theme of the historical centers recognized by the UNESCO World Heritage Site. This is the key to establish a large network among the various clubs in every part of Europe and to make known the study activities carried out especially by young European students. The site will be updated regularly.
To the topics covered in the conference will be associated, every two years, a theme from which they will derive concrete actions that the Rotary Clubs will assign to the valorization of own historical centers and in order to leave memory of this service of rotariana collaboration.