Collegium XXI Foundation is a legal person of private law, without a patrimonial scope, non-government, independent and nonpolitical, founded in October 2012, assuming to be an active presence in the ample process of development of the society, through educational and cultural programs designed to help integrate the individual into the social, economic and cultural environment of XXI Century European Romania, by means of his/her personal development, on the country’s way to an open society, aware of the value of the Other.
The Foundation has acted, is now doing it and shall act are education and culture through any legal activity that can contribute to fulfilling the mission it has been founded to accomplish, mainly through programs or campaigns of cultural, social, civic, economical education or to raise the awareness regarding the individual’s role in the harmonious functioning of society as a whole.
Among its objectives, the Foundation also aims at helping educate society with regards to the protection of the national/international cultural heritage. In this sense, the Foundation has been a partner in and is initiating, at present, programs meant to raise the people’s awareness regarding the prevention of and the fight against the illicit traffic in mobile cultural goods, as a means to preserve national and universal cultural traditions, as a source of inspiration for the harmonious living of the members of society in a world wherein various groups meet, create and enjoy cultural, social and economic values, and also as a very important support in the life of communities and of everyone, a support that the European Union is looking forward to keep in the reach of everyone who wants to participate in these traditions, with their peculiarities and specific.
Many instruments are used by the Foundation in preventing or fighting the illicit traffic in mobile cultural goods.
Legal:
- The legislation in force in the field of cultural heritage in general and of prevention and fighting the traffic in mobile cultural goods;
- lobby and advocacy: the initiation of normative acts, the partial or complete organization of the activity of drafting or supporting these projects in the Romanian or the European Parliament, in order to support the prevention or the fight against illicit trafficking in mobile cultural goods and to raise the people’s awareness – for as many categories of public as possible – regarding the role citizens can play in this sense.
Ethical:
- own mechanism / department, supported out of the Foundations’ own resources, to monitor the evolution of the motivations of various social or socio-professional categories that are responsible or could become responsible in the field of preventing or fighting the traffic in mobile cultural goods, in order to determine the necessary activities raising their awareness regarding the importance of this complex activity necessary to preserve the cultural national and international heritage;
- the draft, involving all the bodies responsible in this field, of an ethical guide (distributed in schools, churches etc.) for the citizen committed in preserving the national and cultural international heritage, and in preventing and fighting the illicit traffic in mobile cultural goods.
Practical:
- local/national/international campaigns, programs, actions, events various activities of public information, raising the awareness, making any social or socio-professional category responsible with regards to the importance of the mobile cultural heritage and to the prevention of and fighting against the illicit traffic in mobile cultural goods;
- professional training sessions for various socio-professional categories running activities in the field of prevention of and fighting against the illicit traffic in mobile cultural goods, in order to diversify and complete their abilities and knowledge;
- supporting the people responsible in fighting internal and international thefts and traffic in mobile cultural goods to participate in professional exchanges with similar structures from other countries, training sessions, workshops, conferences and/or symposia, and spreading the information/skills thus obtained among those responsible in this field;
- various types of dedicated communication (periodic or permanent publications, seminars, conferences, symposia, events, actions platforms of communication etc.).
Among the main resources used – beyond the financial and/or relational ones, the following types of sociological researches were initiated or run by the Foundation:
- researches concerning the Romanian jurisprudence in the field of preservation of the cultural heritage and of prevention of and fight against the illicit traffic in mobile cultural goods;
- sociological researches concerning the values, the attitude/s and perception/s of the public concerning the cultural heritage/objects of patrimony; values, the attitude/s and perception/s of the sleeping partner eager to purchase mobile cultural goods even unlawfully obtained by their seller; values, the attitude/s and perception/s of those responsible in the prevention of or the fight against the illicit traffic in mobile cultural goods;
- researches regarding the mobile cultural heritage belonging to religious confessions/museums – the specificity of inventorying, preserving and securing the places of adoration/museums and of the patrimonial goods they possess; challenges and problems (e.g.: identifying forgery, legal solutions, etc.);
- researches regarding trading cultural goods: disfunctions and vulnerabilities identified in the market of art objects in Romania and viable solutions for a modern European market of works of art.
All these studies could become the object of further analyses within distinct studies initiated by specialists in those fields.
