As the year ends, it’s time for an update on our two European projects. Here we find out about Empaths.
Empaths is our second European project, a classic transnational cooperation action, funded by the European Union Erasmus+ programme.
Empaths supports IE’s work to pilot a new training course for HI professionals to facilitate participatory heritage interpretation reflecting the democratisation of heritage and the shift to value-based and people-centred heritage interpretation. It will expand our knowledge and experience in this area alongside the Learning Landscapes initiative involving a selection of UNESCO World Heritage sites and the Framework of Reference which is central to the HI-People project.
After a year of research and development, we have produced a methodological framework for an online and on-site course, a curriculum and syllabus, and an Empaths Manifesto, an easily accessible document for all heritage stakeholders that sets out the case for participation (or heritage communities) and the role of interpreters as facilitators of personal meaning-making. You can find all these documents and more on the project website: www.empaths-project.eu.
Our partners in Northwest Greece, Austria/Slovenia and Southern Italy had the pleasure of sharing their work at a recent webinar of the Global Alliance for Heritage Interpretation (GAHI) and are now preparing the learning materials for the training. The focus then turns to recruiting ‘local’ participants to take part in the pilot training, beginning with a series of six online sessions in May next year, followed by on-site community labs in the autumn.
Click here for past GAHI webinars, a service which is also supported by the HI-People project.
Visit the www.empaths-project.eu for more details and free-to-access documentation and please register to receive the Empaths newsletter. We are also on social media, so do follow us from the website links.
Alexander (Sandy) Colvine is IE’s Project Manager for HI-People and Empaths. He can be contacted at: alexander.colvine@interpret-europe.net.
To cite this article: Dimitrovska, Vasilka (2025) ‘Hands-on with the Romans: Re-imagining Stobi through live interpretation’ in Interpret Europe Newsletter 3-2025, p. 17.
Available online: Newsletter autumn 2025
