The União das Misericórdias Portuguesas (UMP) established a protocol with the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage (DGPC) and the five Regional Directorates of Culture (North, Centre, Alentejo and Algarve) to enhance the cultural and heritage heritage of the Santas Casas, mobilizing senior citizens for an active role in “fostering the country's culture and history”.
Under this partnership, which aims to contribute to greater preservation and conservation of the heritage, but also to promote its dissemination as a vehicle for strengthening the identity roots of the Portuguese population, the UMP, DGPC and Regional Directorates of Culture will develop the project “Viver Patrimony".
These partnerships will also enhance the creation of the “Virtual Museum of Misericórdias”.
«The “Viver Património” project is based on a volunteer program that aims to mobilize the senior population throughout the country to promote cultural activities in museums, monuments and palaces, but also to regularly open the Misericórdias churches to the public» , explains the UMP.
As soon as sanitary conditions allow, «volunteers who join this project will receive training in the areas of welcoming visitors and the enhancement and maintenance of heritage».
The “Virtual Museum of Misericórdias” project, which is being designed in a partnership between UMP and Santa Casa de Lisboa, is a multimedia platform that will allow the promotion and dissemination of the Misericórdias heritage, with the aim of contributing to a greater knowledge of reality of the Santas Casas, as well as of its mission and secular identity.
The protocols now signed, which reinforce the partnership that was already being developed, represent an important increase in the work that UMP intends to carry out in the valorisation, recovery and conservation of the immovable, mobile and museological heritage of the Misericórdias.
In this context, the strategy of disclosing the architectural and historical heritage of the Misericórdias on multimedia platforms such as visitportugal.pt of Turismo de Portugal will also be reinforced. The dynamization of this architectural and cultural potential of the Misericórdias becomes indispensable for the promotion of local culture, for the creation of wealth and social cohesion in the territory.
The UMP also established a collaboration protocol with the Directorate-General for Books, Archives and Libraries (DGLAB), to foster greater qualification of the Misericórdias archives and integrate them into the Portuguese Archives Network, through the Archives Portal, promoting the evaluation and treatment of the Santas Casas archival collections.
Misericórdias has taken on the mission of safeguarding, preserving and disseminating its cultural heritage, which includes realities of relevant artistic, architectural, archival, ethnographic and immaterial interest.
As a whole, the Misericórdias have «a significant collection that brings together more than 1000 properties of historical and architectural interest, a total of 82 museums and museological centers and more than 32.000 pieces already registered in the process of inventory of movable heritage that is underway. They also assume important manifestations of intangible heritage, which gives them their own unique identity».
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