Κεντρική Σελίδα I PITCHER Project EU

What is PITCHER?

The general objective of PITCHER consists of the design and test of a set of open educational resources focusing on improving the educators’ capacity in preparing new learning experiences to support the fight against looting and illicit trafficking of cultural goods. The project will propose a new model for showing young people how they can support the fight against looting and illicit trafficking of cultural goods, addressing their school teachers, to raise teachers’ awareness and enhance their professional development in this field.

How?

empowering schools with tools to help their students acquire the critical thinking skills necessary to play an effective role in tackling this problem, as a young citizen and as an adult;
creating educational materials based on STEAM Education as access points for guiding student inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking;
using the educational potential present in European digital heritage collections (archeological sites, museums, libraries, etc.) to help teachers develop lessons and workshops focusing on the fight against looting and illicit trafficking of cultural goods.

Empowering schools

Creating educational materials

Using EUropean digital heritage collections

Why PITCHER ?

The NETCHER project started in January 2019 and concluded in March 2021, was aimed at reinforcing the fight against cultural heritage looting and trafficking, by bringing together the key actors (security force and research communities, public and private institutions, art market specialists, policy makers).

With the objective of paving the way to further initiatives, NETCHER issued a set of recommendations, addressing all the different communities of stakeholders. They underline the importance of creating reliable, comprehensive and accessible information, on which the efficiency of education and awareness processes relies. The Final Forum of NETCHER, organised on 1-2 March 2021, has also underlined the need to extend its activities to a wider audience, also involving the educational sector and the general public, since the dimension of the challenge requires a wider intervention, involving all the citizens from their early age. In the final round table, representatives of five Directorates-General of the European Commission - also including DG EAC for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture - were requested to comment on the recommendations issued by the NETCHER project and highlighted the policy issues from different perspectives. They all agreed that a strong interaction among the educational sector and the key actors involved in looting and trafficking is necessary, with a strong focus on cultural institutions. Archaeological sites and museums are mostly concerned, but all cultural institutions are touched by this severe issue.

The PITCHER project is the first action to put into practice this strategy, trying to respond to the needs (often not clearly identified yet) of the educational sectors in front of this key problem.