We are delighted to announce that the European Heritage Volunteers Programme has been honoured with a European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Award 2025 in the category "Education, Training & Skills"!
Launched by the European Commission and facilitated by Europa Nostra, the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards are among the most prestigious recognitions in the field of cultural heritage, celebrating exemplary initiatives that safeguard and promote Europe’s rich and diverse heritage.
The esteemed jury commended our programme for its continuity and long-lasting impact, broad thematic scope, hands-on and practical orientation, grassroots approach, and close collaboration with local communities across Europe.
This recognition belongs to the entire European Heritage Volunteers Network: to every Project Partner, Technical Instructor, Group Coordinator, and Participant whose dedication and shared commitment have shaped the European Heritage Volunteers Programme. Together, they are the community that made this achievement possible, and it is they who have earned this award.
Therefore, we want to express our sincere thanks to all of you as well as to the members of the organisations, institutions, and networks you do represent.
In the following, find the official text describing why the European Heritage Volunteers Programme has been awarded:
For many years, the European Heritage Volunteers have organised highly successful “Traditional Crafts in Practice” courses. Between 2022 and 2024, the NGO ran 22 courses in 14 European countries, including 11 EU member states and three candidate countries. These were delivered in 37 separate editions, welcoming more than 430 participants from 67 countries worldwide and involving over 40 technical instructors from 17 nations.
The courses have been hosted at a wide variety of heritage sites, ranging from UNESCO World Heritage Sites to industrial monuments, places of worship, and clusters of vernacular buildings. Many locations are selected for their neglected or marginal condition, with the aim of revitalising heritage assets often overlooked in mainstream conservation practice.
Each course runs for two weeks and follows an informal, practice-based structure. The approach focuses on international groups of students and emerging heritage professionals, typically composed of around 12 to 14 participants, to ensure intensive collaboration and individual mentoring. Instruction covers a broad spectrum of traditional crafts, including carpentry, masonry, mortars and plasters, fresco restoration, vernacular techniques, textile arts, and others. Sessions are jointly led by experienced heritage professionals, master craftspeople, and local practitioners facilitating direct intergenerational and intercultural exchange.
The courses are based on detailed research on local history, materials, and construction methods, with many activities taking place in public or semi-public spaces. This open format encourages participation by local communities, who are often involved as co-instructors, partners or audience members during public presentations and site events. Community engagement extends further, through partnerships with local authorities, activists and NGOs, who contribute to planning, dissemination and follow-up actions after the courses end. The programme’s grassroots approach and cost-effective structure enables broad participation and makes it possible to deliver recurring activities with limited resources, benefiting greatly from in-kind support and local collaboration.
A specific aspect of the courses is the focus on the “living connection” between heritage sites, practitioners and communities. The training does not simply aim to preserve techniques for their own sake, but to demonstrate how traditional methods and materials can be adapted for use in contemporary conservation and building projects. The use of local, natural materials highlights the environmental sustainability of many traditional crafts, offering practical lessons for climate resilience and resource efficiency.
The recurring nature of the training programme, together with its transnational network, has created a robust framework for ongoing collaboration. A significant number of participants have returned to subsequent editions, and the network of instructors continues to expand, contributing to a wider European dialogue on practical restoration skills and community-based conservation. Further courses and new partnerships are planned for the coming years, supporting the ongoing transfer of knowledge and skills across generations and borders.
“The training programme’s highly international character, engaging motivated participants from across Europe and supported by recognised local experts, is a key strength,” the Awards’ Jury stated.
“Regular courses validate and promote heritage and craft practices, while strong planning and management have built an extensive and resilient network of skilled participants,” the Jury added.
The above-mentioned text can be downloaded here.
This recognition allowed European Heritage Volunteers to compete for the Public Choice Award! As the voting concluded on September 12th, 2025, we sincerely thank all those who have supported us!
The Bronze Plaque for the European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Award 2025 travels across Europe in a journey of celebration!
On the 26th of June 2025, in the Parliament of Brandenburg in Potsdam, a bronze plaque was handed to European Heritage Volunteers. It carried with it the recognition of the European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Award 2025 in the category “Education, Training & Skills”. Rather than being placed quietly in an office or exhibition space, the plaque immediately set out on a journey, becoming a travelling emblem of a European wide network that thrives on connection, dynamism, movement, and collaboration.
Its first stop was Gantikow Manor, north of Berlin, where this year’s team of group coordinators for the European Heritage Volunteers Programme from across Europe and beyond gathered for their training seminar. These young professionals, who accompany, guide, and support the international groups throughout the season, form the backbone of the programme. It was fitting that they were the first to receive the bronze plaque, as a trophy honouring their dedication and marking their transition into the bearers of a demanding mission, but above all as a shared symbol of trust, recognition, and collaboration. In their hands, the award became a reminder that it belongs to everyone whose commitment makes the training courses and volunteering projects possible.
From there, the plaque set out on its journey, crossing borders and landscapes, riding cars, buses and trains, and at one point even carried through kilometres in a backpack over steep mountain paths (Yes, this really happened!). Wherever it appeared, it was greeted with warmth and pride, igniting recognition and turning each arrival into a moment of celebration.
The plaque arrived at Lauenstein Castle, framed by the forests of Saxony, where an international group of young conservators received it amidst their work restoring Renaissance frescoes. In Austria, at Mauerbach Charterhouse, participants conserving masonry and architectural surfaces in lime technology welcomed it as part of their training course. In Hungary, it was received in the gardens and palaces of Fejér County, where our group worked hard to contribute with the valorisation and revitalisation of these beautiful garden landscapes. In Slovenia, it entered the cloisters of Stična Abbey, where centuries-old stone surfaces were carefully conserved by our international team.
Slovakia received it at Tematín Castle, where century-old walls were raised with teamwork and endurance. In Lithuania it reached the Open-Air Museum of Rumšiškės, where the Assumption of Mary was celebrated with music, crafts, and the unveiling of the group’s finished work. In Latvia, the journey unfolded across two remarkable sites: at Lielstraupe Castle the plaque was carried into a festival alive with concerts, exhibitions, and community pride, while at Āraiši Archaeological Park it stood by as logs were carved and fitted into the frame of a reconstructed Viking Age house.
In Germany’s Ore Mountains, it was welcomed by the people of the mining tradition and the emerging heritage professionals working on the Röhrgraben, a water system that once sustained centuries of mining. From there it travelled to Seiffen, where amidst the Toy Makers Festival it was lifted with pride by the Prime Minister of Saxony and embraced by the community whose wooden craft traditions are known across the world.
The journey then carried it to Naumburg, where the plaque rested among the historic gravestones of the cathedral cemetery, where participants recorded fragile memorials and shared their efforts with the local community. In Weimar, it was greeted at the gates of the City Palace, by the President of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar, who received it in a celebration of sixteen years of collaboration with European Heritage Volunteers, honouring a partnership that has brought young people from around the world into the parks and gardens of Classical Weimar. Finally, the bronze plaque travelled to the Moravian Church community of Herrnhut, recently inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
At each destination, the European Heritage / Europa Nostra Award 2025 bronze plaque became a guest of honour welcomed by communities, local authorities, artists, and heritage activists. It was celebrated at concerts, greeted in churches and castles, and held up proudly by the participants of the European Heritage Volunteers Programme from dozens of countries worldwide. It connected abbeys with castles, gardens with mining canals, open-air museums with historic cemeteries. The journey turned into a celebration of the diversity of Europe’s cultural heritage and the shared effort to preserve it.
The path of the bronze plaque mirrors the path of European Heritage Volunteers itself. It moves through historic places, connects different communities, and carries a message of collaboration, continuity, and pride. Each stop has been a reminder that heritage is not static, but alive when celebrated together, when skills are transmitted, and when communities open their traditions and stories to others.
The journey is far from over. In the weeks ahead, the bronze plaque will continue its travels, with planned visits to the Niederzwönitz Paper Mill in the Ore Mountains, which is currently under consideration for World Heritage status, to endangered vernacular ensembles around Ivanić Grad in Croatia, to the three-store adobe ensemble in the village of Mandritsa in Bulgaria, to the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro where it will be welcomed by local heritage activists in Gornji Stoliv, and finally to the 19th-century villa of a pioneer-entrepreneur in Meliana in Spain which is currently being restored and revitalised.
