Posts Tagged ‘local communities’
“Acting for Monuments”
Public Meeting
«Acting for Monuments»
The non-profit Civic Company MOnuMENTA for the protection of the natural and cultural heritage of Greece and Cyprus and the Drymalia Municipality of Naxos island, organise the public meeting «Acting for Monuments», on Friday 21st August 2009, 7.30 p.m., at the main Square of Chalki Village with the kind support of The J.F. Costopoulos Foundation.
MOnuMENTA has been implementing the «Local Communities & Monuments» programme for the last three years, including several public meetings, public outreach schemes, publications and other activities. Through these and systematic participation in local activities, the programme attempts to inform and raise awareness in the local communities for the surrounding natural and monumental wealth of the island, the risks that it faces, and propose sustainable solutions. What is more, it attempts to research the ways that the past is being understood and addressed in the present through traditional or contemporary, local or imported practises and habits.
Working for some time with island communities and in the goverment system, we came across several inadequacies in the specification of the jurisdictions between the official carriers for the protection of natural and built monuments and considerable lack of acquaintance among the citizens in the ways that they could «act» for the protection and the sustainable management of the monuments.
This year, the programme invites a number of public and other carriers (e.g. Ministry of Culture, Drymalia Municipality, Cyclades’ Perfecture, NGO’s, University of Athens) and individual citizens in order to locate jurisdictions and responsibilities of each one of them and also to outline adequate ways of action according to which the citizens’ society could be informed and work for the protection of the natural and built environment; An important asset in the present, when the decisions for the future of the monuments are -more often than not- taken behind closed doors, with minimal participatory procedures.
Through this note, we would like to invite the active citizens of the island to participate in the meeting and the dialogue that will follow the 10’ talks of the invited speakers, proposing among others possible actions for the sustainable management of the monuments and solutions to the problems that endanger nature, history and the cohesiveness of the society. The conclusive dialogue will focus on the proposals for the salvation of two important monuments of the island, the hellenistic Chimarros Tower and the venetian Jesuit’s Palace, that were brought up several times in the previous public meeting of the programme (08.09.08) for the «Monuments of Naxos at Risk».
Further Info: Drymalia Municipality 22850 32647
MOnuMENTA info@monumenta.org http://www.monumenta.org, http://topikeskoinoniesmnimeia.wordpress.com/
https://lcmo.wordpress.com
6972268659, 6973308857
Building a factory in Chaironeia
The Central Archaeological Council of Greece (KAS) with the majority of votes cast in favour, reversed its last decision and allowed ENELCO’s large energy production unit to be built near Chaironeia’s archaeological site (the historic battlefield – a listed monument), converting it into an industrial zone.
Even though local communities of Boeotoia -under several schemata- acted swiftly and opposed the “imminent desecration of the site” a number of “exasperated citizens” demonstrated in favour of the new factory, commenting on the ‘development’ to be brought upon the area.
According to the majority of the citizens, the factory will have devastating consequences for the area environmentally and if 
built, it will be a negative precedent for the creation of other similar units.
http://symparataxi.blogspot.com / symparataxi@gmail.com
Α public meeting at Chimarros Tower, Naxos, 12.08.08
On Tuesday 12.08.08 a public meeting was conducted at the Chimarros Tower, organised by the Filoti citizens’ society in the island of Naxos (Cyclades). The meeting attempted to raise awareness for the monument-symbol of the hinterland Naxos that faces multiple dangers.
The restoration of the monument commenced with the 2nd CSF but was not continued in the subsequent Support Framework. Thus, the excavation went half-way while the restoration project was limited to a protective frame built around the monument and the identification and arrangement of the fallen architectural members in groups.
In this meeting, several representatives from Drymalia Municipality and other local groups participated along with 70 citizens of Philoti (seated on the arranged spolia around the monument), an impressive number of people for a hot afternoon in August.
Three short lectures presented the history of the tower and the history of the funding received while in average moderate appositions by the citizens, pledged for the need of co-operation amongst the carriers in charge in order to recommence the restoration project.
Amongst the interesting issues arisen is the image of the Ministry of Culture presented by the majority of the people that spoke in the meeting. A distant, slow public service -hostile towards the citizens- that does not respond to their letters and pledges, being at the same time detrimental to the monuments and incapable to co-operate with other state services.
This image -complemented by additional data collected in our research- reflects a general public view for the Ministry existent in the local communities of Naxos and in general around the Aegean: A hostile and distant -almost Kafka-like- authority, that interrupts the “developmental” projects of the citizens in order to study meaningless “ruins”; A state mechanism, characterised mainly by absence of social responsibility being indifferent towards the public, without any “structured participative methods and possibilities of dialogue whatsoever”.
Although invited, representatives of the Ministry of Culture were absent and thus another opportunity of commencing a fruitful dialogue by putting things into perspective went astray.
Local Communities & Monuments 