By revitalizing and digitalizing eight folk crafts and local handicrafts, the cultural identity of ethnic minorities will be strengthened within the project carried out with the support of the European Solidarity Corps Programme, thanks to the care of the Ér Hangja Association, in partnership with the local “Petőfi Sándor” High School and Săcueni City Hall for a year. At least four hundred students from local schools and at least one hundred pensioners from the local community will be involved in the implementation of the project. At the same time, the target group of the initiative includes folk craftsmen who work in the Săcueni city area or in the Valea Ierului microregion.
The following activities will be organized within the project, in craft creative workshops such as paper saving workshop using a traditional recycling technique; carpet weaving workshop by reusing textile waste; preparing homemade noodles; pottery; workshop for making wooden models; manual woodworking workshop; crochet workshop; corn cob braiding workshop.
The steps of the solidarity project started in August with a meeting to plan the activities to be carried out. The aim of the craft workshops is promoting cultural diversity, respecting the traditions and cultural identity of the members of the local community. The initiative also aims to revitalize tourism according to the specific plans of the project by digitizing the traditional folk crafts of the area. The creation of a database will facilitate the general public’s access to all information on these heritage values.
The participants in the first project management meeting discussed the tasks that fall to each of them during the activities. Through the implementation of the programs, the volunteers intend to contribute to the rediscovery of the folk crafts of Valea Ierului by mapping them and increasing the attractiveness of the crafts. In this sense, the secondary goal of the project is to save local traditions and customs from extinction and to encourage young people to try, to learn, to master these folk handicrafts. In this way, presentation materials, in this case documentaries, are made for the purpose of archiving, preserving and using inherited folk crafts but also for educational purposes.
