The "Batana House" association under the management of Tamara Nikolić Đerić is the only Istrian association whose project was approved within the Interreg V-A Italy-Croatia 2014-2020 program in the Istria County

After the projects CULTURECOVERY- INTERREG CENTRAL EUROPE and Mala barka 2- INTERREG SI-HR, where the "Batana House" association is one of the partners, the ARCA ADRIATICA - INTERREG ITALY-CROATIA project has also recently been approved. As the Istria County prefect Valter Flego pointed out during the presentation of the results of the public call for delivery of “standard“ project proposals as part of the Interreg V-A Italy-Croatia 2014-2020 program on the territory of the Istria County, the roughly 32 million Kuna that reach Istria from EU funds are a great success.

Among the 11 projects approved within Istria County, some projects were approved for the benefit of development agencies and institutions of the Istria County, as well as the towns of Labin, Buje and Poreč, Pula Airport, Rovinj Harbor Administration and the "Batana House" association.

The president of the "Batana House" explains how the Association succeeded in becoming part of this select group, showing that results like these can also be achieved by other associations in spite of the new legislative framework that creates obstacles for their work: "Since I've taken over management of the Ecomuseum Batana, at first as program manager and later as president, I wanted to raise the hitherto accomplished success to a new level. By that I mean the education of professionals, stronger international cooperation and a wider influence on all of our town's social structures. The challenge was huge, especially in face of the new legislative framework regulating association activities, that often collides with laws on culture and the catering industry, which are relevant in our work. Batana was acknowledged as one of the best practices in immaterial cultural heritage preservation on UNESCO level, however, this (still) does not exclude us from everyday struggles trying to prove the expediency of similar cultural heritage preservation models. Of course, a special problem was finance, so I simply had to pull all my strength together, write, work on partnerships and planning so that we could create three EU projects that we are successfully implementing today. Because, although it is not easy to get funding, it is even more difficult to successfully implement what was planned. I cannot say it is easy, because pressure is great, especially because of deadlines and a lack of funding in the preplanning stages, but with sound strategic planning Batana sails on! The international dimension of projects gives us an additional incentive to grow and share our experience with others, with the continuing goal of active preservation of our cultural heritage and the development of sustainable tourism”, Tamara Nikolić Đerić pointed out.