On 26 and 27 June 2024, this Regional Secretariat for Southern Europe and the Mediterranean of the OWHC, which is coordinated by the city of Cordoba, held two important meetings in the Portuguese city of Porto, attended by 18 representatives from the cities of Aranjuez, Baeza, Cáceres, Cidade Velha, Cordoba, Dubrovnik, Evora, Kotor, Mostar, Porto and Vienna. Leticia Sánches, Head of Urban Heritage Projects at the OWHC General Secretariat, also attended.

On the 26th, the face-to-face meeting of the Collaborative Network on “Trades that conserve and restore heritage”, promoted by the Regional Secretariat itself within the Quebec Roadmap, took place. The President of the Municipal Chamber of Oporto, Rui Moreira, opened the meeting, which took place over two intense days of debate, exchange of good practices and experiences on the most common issues raised by the trades in these world heritage cities. The team that coordinates this Collaborative Network from the city of Évora, with Miguel Pedro, Ricardo Sarmento and Débora Fortunato, proposed various solutions to these problems and concluded very interesting lessons learned to solve them. These conclusions will be presented at the Symposium of the OWHC World Congress to be held in Cordoba from 24 to 27 September. After the working sessions, a visit was made to the interesting MATERIALS BANK that the city of Oporto has been developing for years and that constitutes a magnificent model of good practices in this field.

The following day, a new Project Meeting was held to inform about the projects that the Regional Secretariat is undertaking during 2024. Rafael Pérez de la Concha, Regional Coordinator, presented his management report for the first half of 2024; María del Pozo, from Aranjuez, Coordinator of the Education, Culture and Youth Project, reported on the success of the 4th Youth Ambassadors Meeting that took place in April in Rhodes and bet on the continuity of working with young people. Finally, Paula Helena Santos, from Évora, Coordinator of the Arts and Crafts Project, presented the current situation and proposed to finalise the project after several years of work, as well as to address new themes included in the Quebec Roadmap. The day ended with a heritage visit to the Historic Centre of Porto.