The Sesame Prize was awarded on June 19 at the Collège des Bernardins, in Paris, to fifteen winners. Among them are the Protestant temples of Anduze and Bagnères-de-Bigorre. Created in 2022, this distinction from the Heritage Foundation aims to “reward local, consensual and original activities and initiatives, implemented within religious buildings, whether a cult is still present there or not”. Each winner received an endowment of between 10,000 and 20,000 euros. In 2023, the Protestant temples of Jouy-en-Josas and Gallargues-le-Montueux were distinguished.
The objectives of the Sesame Prize are multiple. First, it identifies initiatives for shared uses between a religious activity and other cultural, social, or even economic activities, or for reconversion to uses other than religious. In addition, it rewards the most qualitative projects. Finally, it promotes these successes in order to make them known more widely in order to inspire public and private owners, describes the organization’s website. The Sesame Prize thus intends to “preserve religious heritage through the promotion of respectful and coherent uses”. Since its creation in 1996, the Heritage Foundation has enabled the safeguarding of more than 8,000 religious sites.
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