To build enduring peace and reconciliation, people must learn to work together. Cultural heritage has an essential role in that it can be a focal point for understanding and generating respect for the values of others. The Regional Restoration Camps (RRC) is a heritage conservation training model that works towards dialogue and understanding by creating ‘safe spaces,’ within which participants focus on learning and applying knowledge — about heritage and each other. The practical works during the Camps are organized in a way that fosters trust through teamwork and achievement—enhancing conditions for personal belief, greater togetherness, and compassion. The camps are planned and implemented so that young professionals and craftspeople, both women and men, from Southeast Europe can meet and learn about each other and their respective cultural backgrounds. By fostering personal understanding, this activity is contributing toward the creation of new cultural polities based on dialogue and works toward preventing conflicts like those the region suffered in the 1990s. Since 2007, Cultural Heritage without Borders (CHwB) has organized 38 Camps, which have covered topics such as building restoration, artifact conservation, community development, interpretation, entrepreneurship and heritage management. The development of these camps has been supported and encouraged by international professionals, educational institutions and multilateral donors. After ten years of the Regional Restoration Camps, the authors feel that this model can be extended to other areas pre-or post-conflict, as a means of utilizing cultural heritage for peace building and reconciliation. This paper will describe the methodology of the Camps as well as ideas for implementation in other regions of the world.

Today, more than 25 years after the fall of Albania’s Communist regime, the country is engaged in a struggle over how to deal with its Communist past. For decades, Albania had not taken the steps that many other transition countries have gone through: opening the secret police files; initiating a truth and reconciliation commission; undertaking a concerted effort to find and identify the bodies of those who had forcibly disappeared; or reinterpreting the art and artefacts of Albanian Communism through a reflexive gaze. Within this context, sites of memory, such as Spac Prison, have taken on a particularly important role in shaping the discussion over memory and heritage-making for Albania’s recent past. Originally a mine, Spac Prison developed into a notorious political prison and forced labour camp, modelled after the Stalinist gulags. It is the only such site to be listed as a protected cultural heritage site in Albania. The current presence of a mining company at Spac Prison adds to the complexity—raising tensions between the original purpose of the site (plus the region’s need for economic development) and its history as a place of persecution. Underlying these tensions is the recognition that heritage-making involves a constant struggle over whose stories and pasts are acknowledged and how. Since 2014, the NGO Cultural Heritage without Borders–Albania (CHwB-Albania) has been engaging as wide a range of stakeholders as possible in a long-term process to develop Spac Prison into a place of dialogue. This dialogue and human rights-based approach recognizes that the conservation, interpretation and adaptive reuse of a site are all reliant on how the site becomes ‘heritage.’ Our paper demonstrates how the heritage-making processes surrounding sites of persecution/atrocity/memory such as Spac Prison have important implications for the promotion of human rights and democratic ideals in Albania today.

Regional Restoration Camps (RRC) are a training model (internationally recognized in 2014 with a Europa Nostra Award) that work towards dialogue and understanding by creating ‘safe spaces,’ within which participants focus on learning and applying knowledge — about heritage and about each other. The practical works of Camps are organized in a way to foster trust through team working and achievement that in turn enhances conditions for personal trust, greater togetherness and compassion. The camps are planned and implemented so that young professionals and crafts persons, both women and men, from Southeast Europe can meet and learn about each other and their respective cultural backgrounds. By fostering personal understanding, CHwB is contributing toward the creation of new cultural policies based on dialogue and works toward preventing conflicts like those the region suffered in the 1990s. Since 2007, there have been 32 Camps and the topics explored and studied have included building restoration, artefact conservation, community development, interpretation, entrepreneurship and management of cultural heritage. The development of these camps has been supported and encouraged by international professionals, educational institutions and multilateral donors. CHwB wishes to share their good practice developed over the last 10 years and expand their model of utilizing cultural heritage as a focus for peace building and reconciliation. The idea of the Regional Restoration Camps can be extended to other areas pre or post conflict. This paper will describe the methodology of the camps as well as ideas for implementation in other regions of the world.

During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–1995) cultural heritage was explicitly targeted and the state of destruction was extensive to both sacral and secular monuments. Two decades after the end of hostilities the perception of the historic environment is still defined from the angles of national, religious or ethnic belonging. Enabling recognition, reconciliation, tolerance and respect within the community of Stolac, Bosnia & Herzegovina through a better understanding and sharing of cultural heritage was the focus of this project. Stolac is representative of the problems in the region and stands out for its particularly sharp divisions. Until recently there was segregation with local schools and their curriculum was divided with cultural heritage generally not addressed. How can this small community engage with heritage and develop a dialogue that encourages tolerance, respect and as a base for development? How does one understand, then document areas significance to the community? Finally, how can technology assist? The focus of this paper is to relate the experiences and findings of a project that incorporated participatory imaging mapping and the use of technology to bridge between the internal borders of this small community. It will outline a methodology, experiences of the participants and results from their exercises in order to assist other communities facing similar issues.