Peru - “Give Life to Your Heritage”: a Campaign that Involves the Pupils of the Salesian Institute of Cusco

08 August 2016
Peru - “Give Life to Your Heritage”: a Campaign that Involves the Pupils of the Salesian Institute of Cusco

(ANS – Cusco) – Cusco, with impressive Machu Picchu, is one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. Each street, each alley of the cultural centre of Cusco is full of historical relics. Anyhow, in the course of time, archaeological sites lose their beauty and need to be taken care of. Because of this, the Delegate Direction of Culture of Cusco launched the campaign “Give Life to Your Heritage”, an initiative that involves people in the cleaning and preservation of the walls of pre-Inca, Inca and colonial making, located in the streets and squares of the historical centre of Cusco. In this service of custody and preservation of the history and culture of the city, the students of the last year of the Salesian Institute of Cusco are also involved. They chose to call their group “Joseph Kowalski”, in honour of the blessed Salesian Polish priest.

The authorities of Cusco have promoted the activity and the Salesians pupils actively participate in the initiative. Through this proposal, the young Salesian students become aware of the fundamental role of the care of the patrimony and culture and become young custodians of the cultural heritage of their city. “The objective is that all students take part in it. Before going to clean the walls, we start with an outline on the history of Cusco. Only afterwards does the cleaning work commence. This is a delicate task, since it is a sort of doctor-patient relationship, because every wall and every stone have to be studied. Working on historical walls is a very delicate job: it is not only a matter of taking care of history and cleaning the walls, but rather of becoming aware that our history must be preserved for the coming centuries”, the young participants recount.

As stated by a representative of the Salesian Institute, with the campaign “Give life to your Heritage”, the Salesian students not only get to know the importance of protecting the patrimony, but “they themselves take part in the care required to preserve the stone paintings of our magic city”.

A video showing the service of the young Salesian students is available on YouTube.

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