Idrija 2020 is an association from Idrija, Slovenia, that focuses on building awareness of the cultural heritage and combining it to social entrepreneurship in the local community. It was established in 2012 by young enthusiasts and entrepreneurs to tackle the biggest challenge of UNESCO town Idrija: young people leaving this small and peripheral town.
PAST ACTIVITIES
Since the formation, we have:
– initiated and co-created an award-winning youth centre and a youth hostel (today a separate organisation with 9 young employees),
– prepared the official municipal youth strategy, shaped several youth policies (from participation to housing),
– initiated the formation of a startup community and a new coworking space (today led by local businesses),
– created a heritage-inspired luxury jewellery brand (today a separate business),
– published an award-winning youth magazine about local youth,
– written an award-winning vision and a strategy for the town in the 21st century (that inspired the official municipal strategy),
– organised numerous community-building events on citizen heritage and
– helped in the transformation of a traditional local dish festival into a popular and creative culinary event (today a separate team).
Our activities have significantly contributed to the development of Idrija into a youth-friendly municipality. In 2014, the President of the Republic of Slovenia awarded Idrija the “Youth-Friendly Municipality Certificate”, while in 2018, Idrija’s official development strategy put youth retention and attraction as the top priority of local administration for the next 5 years.
PRESENT WORK
Our activities are increasingly shifting from traditional youth (policies) advocacy to (social) business development and entrepreneurial support and urban consultancy. Association has 25 members, which are active in different areas – design, urban planning, architecture, tourism, international relations, storytelling and gamification of the touristic experience.
In 2018, Idrija 2020 participated in EU Social Innovation Competition and won the competition on the theme Re:Think Local with the concept for HeritageLab – a specialized incubation programme for young people that polish “unpolished diamonds” of local cultural heritage.
A vision to take the heritage innovation one step further led to the establishment of the ID20 Institute, which is focused on intertwinement between cultural heritage, marketing, entrepreneurship and architecture.
Rate us and Write a Review
