In 2001, Merlin Association has launched a continuing education project, with the following goals:
- informal education in the traditional and artistic crafts: tailoring and sewing workshops, weaving workshops, molding, clay and plaster casts
- inclusion and the encouragement of self-employment of the unemployed women, adolescents and women of various age groups
- occupational activities for persons with special needs: weaving, clay and plaster casts, souvenir making…
The participants of sewing, weaving, handicraft and souvenir-making workshops are trained individually, depending on their skills and abilities. Workshop participants are people who wish to learn old skills, who do not only gain knowledge but also develop their sense of own worth ad self-confidence. When encouraging the creativity and the design of original handicrafts, we also cherish the traditional textile and artistic crafts. The motifs and objects created in our workshops are historically, culturally and aesthetically consistent with the Istrian, Mediterranean and Croatian tradition.
The ARTEKSTIL project is a work and occupational workshop for the wards of the Vila Marija Home for Adults, the Center for Inclusion and Support in the Community, the Association of Deaf and Hearing-impaired Persons, and the benficiaries of the Red Cross Homeless Shelter.
Club members meet each week and exchange their knowledge of handicrafts, they organize meetings and make ornamental objects and souvenirs, they volunteer at the fairs, and therefore spend their time meaningfully.
