Project

The project in Bethany, 2023-2026, Aid# 012590/07/8
The project stems from the need to safeguard cultural and natural heritage and to fully implement its potential in promoting quality, equitable and inclusive education and in promoting economic growth for the benefit of the local Palestinian community. The initiative is aimed primarily at the most vulnerable sections of the community: young people and women and is the result of a consolidated and strategic partnership between the Pro Terra Sancta Association, the Mosaic Center and al Quds University, which have been involved in the conservation and enhancement of cultural heritage for years. Palestinian and in the formation of the local community.
Culture is a source of growth and employment, and promotes the values of identity and belonging to a community, in fact, the preamble of the Faro Convention, ratified by Italy in 2020, underlines “the value and potential of a legacy culturally used wisely as a resource for sustainable development and quality of life, in a society in constant evolution”. Education, on the other hand, plays a central role even in contexts of emergencies and conflicts, reducing vulnerability and contributing to the social and economic stability of communities.
In addition to the partners already mentioned, the proposed initiative will now involve the University of Palermo to create opportunities for continuous and lifelong learning by creating technical and professional training diploma course aimed at the conservation and maintenance of the cultural heritage, present in the Bethany site, and which also concerns aspects of the conservation of the natural heritage. The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquity will also be involved, with a view to perfecting rules and regulations for operating in the conservation sector and addressing the problem of the lack of adequately trained and specialized people, and the Terra Sancta Museum, a museum institution of the Custody of Terra Santa, whose collection of millenary historical-artistic finds will be available to the participants in the Diploma for theoretical and practical exercises.
The training activities will be carried out in the Department of Archeology of Al Quds University, where a laboratory suitable for carrying out maintenance interventions will be set up and in the historic center of Bethany, but will be dedicated to boys and girls also coming from other areas of Palestine who have finished high school and who will follow the diploma course lasting 20 intensive months. The project will support the startup of the university degree course. Bethany is a significant place as it is located very close to the headquarters of the Department of Archeology of the University of Al Quds, and hosts an archaeological site of great interest. The boys and girls in training will therefore have easy access to the technical and professional training activities that will take place on the site.
From the point of view of economic and tourism development, the initiative, thanks to the enhancement and conservation of the place, plans to extend the stay times of tourists, offering better, more sustainable and accessible services, such as the establishment of an Interpretation Center local. The supply of these services will see the direct involvement of the most vulnerable sections of the local population both in the planning phase and in the implementation phase, since they are the ones that suffer most from the condition of isolation and degradation in which the village is located.
If well valued, the cultural heritage of a territory is able to bring important benefits for the local population, especially for those who live in situations of economic and social difficulties:
• Social, cultural and educational benefits, such as social cohesion, intercultural dialogue, the construction of identity, the improvement of the quality of life, the recovery and revitalization of degraded territories that would face abandonment;
• Economic benefits, such as the creation of new jobs, the development of skills and talents, the opening of new businesses.
The richness of Bethany’s historical and cultural heritage, one of its few resources, could therefore play a key role in the economic, social and environmental improvement of its local community, for inclusive and sustainable growth.