The Mioritics Association is the Romanian partner and representative of the UNESCO project - "Cultural Heritage - a Bridge towards a Shared Future"  The Association is in charge of implementing this arm of the UNESCO project in Romania and aims to enhance the conservation, promotion and valorisation of fortified churches in the Transylvanian region.

Mioritics Association began implementing projects in 2002, but it was legally registered in June 2004. The main aim of Mioritics Association is the cultivation and promotion of active cultural tourism as a means of regional development. The Association has carried out a series of projects targeted at highlighting and improving the value of lesser-known tourist attractions.

Since it was established Mioritics has developed projects that promote heritage-rich areas as tourist attractions. The Mioritics team combine their knowledge and skills in culture and tourism with a solid experience in utilising the newest technology developments to maximize the impact of their actions. They also have considerable expertise in the development of World Heritage Sites in Romania.

Projects implemented by Mioritics Association:

a) Fortified churches of Transylvania (2004-2009)
This project aimed to reaffirm and capture the outstanding value of Transylvania's fortified churches for the Romanian culture and tourism industry.

The first step was a photo journey in Sibiu County. The photo caravan (7 photographers) visited 67 medieval villages (7 of them being on the UNESCO World Heritage List). Following the photo journey, 31 photo exhibitions were organized (in London, Venice, Nurnberg, Dijon, Wismar, Straslund, Bucharest etc) in order to promote the area of the fortified churches, and thus entice the exhibition visitors to come and visit Transylvania.

The next step of the project involved the following activities:
- workshops aimed at raising the private and public stakeholders' awareness of the importance of preserving local cultural heritage as well as its potential  to act as an instrument of human and economic development;
- training courses targeted at the young generation from the villages which provide them with basic skills and knowledge to act as tourist guides;
- collecting and centralizing information on local cultural heritage and events, as well as on existing tourist services and facilities;
- designing promotional materials to be made available free of charge for visitors/tourists;
- launching 3 tourist info centres;
- organising cultural events.

Partners: UNESCO Venice / Cooperazioni Italiana, Deutsch Stiftung Welterbe, European Institute for Cultural Routes

b) Romanian cultural travel events agenda (2003-present)
This project is aimed at developing active cultural tourism in Romania by filling in the gap between the wide variety of cultural and tourism events and their promotion to the public. It also provides a link between the event organizers and potential visitors.

The portal was launched in 2002 and in the same year, it was awarded the prize for the Best website - civil society in the Internetics Festival.

Partners: USAID/CHF and National Authority of Tourism

http://dordeduca.ro/

c) HERITAGE ALIVE! (2006 - 2008)
This project, founded by EU CADSES Programme, established a trans-regional partnership to better utilise the regions World Heritage (WH) to stimulate economic prosperity, strengthen social cohesion and promote regional identity through the use of new media and technologies.

Partners: Salzburg Institute Research (Austria), Province of Salzburg (Austria), Administrative District of Gorlice (Poland), Municipality of Urbino (Italy), Municipality of Hollko(Hungary), the Region of Ionian Islands (Greece), South-central Planning Region (Bulgaria)

http://www.heritagealive.eu/

http://www.heritagealive.eu/