Local | PANORAMA

West Asia, Middle East

Soqotra Heritage Project: building local capacities for the protection of the unique cultural and natural heritage of Socotra

Dr Alan

Forrest

Multidisciplinary partnership of the Soqotra Heritage Project

From biodiversity conservation to a wider nature-culture heritage approach

Building capacities at the local level

Resources for decision making

Sustainable heritage tourism

West Asia, Middle East

Soqotra Heritage Project: building local capacities for the protection of the unique cultural and natural heritage of Socotra

Dr Alan

Forrest

Multidisciplinary partnership of the Soqotra Heritage Project

From biodiversity conservation to a wider nature-culture heritage approach

Building capacities at the local level

Resources for decision making

Sustainable heritage tourism

Local development through the museum

Ampola Biotope.

MUSE

Pile Dwelling Museum.

MUSE

The Pile Dwelling Museum of Ledro is the hearth of the ReLED. The museum was created in ‘72 and its connection to the wider setting began at the same time, when the architect Marcello Piovan was asked to design the museum structure and the wider landscape plan for the area in which the museum is located. The construction was given to local companies and it offered an economic push for the area. The immediate success of the museum, even though at times perceived as foreign in the local context, has been supported since ‘94 by the Museum of Natural Science, today called MUSE.

Since then the museum has boosted local economy in many ways: by attracting tourism from norther Italian schools, promoting activities as part tourism offers, engaging local producers at the museum, restoring municipal structures to provide spaces for activities, engaging with local companies for the reconstructed village and cooperating with local organizations for activities of upkeeping. Other activities also include the inscription of the pile dwelling on the World Heritage list in 2011, the birth of the ReLed, the extension of yearly opening periods and the creation of QBO – a non-museum space (connected to the exhibition floor) dedicated to activities also during the closing time of the museum.

Presiding over an area through a museum requires constant engagement with local actors. It means “making yourself known” as an entity rooted in the territory and flexible towards the development needs of a community. The Pile Dwelling Museum has become something different and broader that has created a sort of stimulating "schizophrenia" that has allowed to work outside the "comfort" into a multidisciplinary, demanding and formative territorial dimension in which fosters "dialogue" among and thinking outside stagnant compartments.

The institutional path followed by the Pile Dwelling Museum of Ledro has brought the museum to look at its surrounding territory. The firsts visits to the museum have activated a virtuous economic cycle that has boosted the interest of local economic actors inside the Valley that have become sponsors of some of the initiatives organized and promoted by the museum. The museum has generated jobs and income making places more attractive and allowing for projects of urban regeneration in cooperation with the local administration.

As a center of creativity innovation and research, the museum has been able to enhance the knowledge and raise awareness on local heritage enabling local fundraising for the creation of events and summer activities. The roots in the wider territorial setting have been enhanced and strengthened through agreements and MoU with local stakeholders, including municipal administration, cooperative credit, private companies, schools.

Entirety

Local

Learning activities with local schools

Activities with schools and children at the museum.

MUSE

Bird ringing station.

MUSE

The Ledro Museum Network (ReLED) has as its main point of action in the Pile Dwelling Museum of Lake Ledro. The museum employees, in over 20 years of experience, have refined methods of involvement, communication techniques and types of activities to be able to reach as many audiences as possible. In 2000, the first working group was gradually created which still continues its activity in the museum and constitutes the "historical memory of the institution that includes an archive of experiences, trainings and reference point for those who joined the museum and the network in following years.

At that time, the museum’s built what can be considered an industrial chair of work: in order to meet the demand it was necessary to create "working standards" both terms of activities with the public and schools and in the logistics, procurement of equipment and teaching materials as well as the precise distribution of the groups in rooms. The activities aimed at schools have found great support over the years, thanks to various innovations: new public facilities and a new museum have been created, the prehistoric village has been reconstructed, cooperation and management of other museums of the ReLED network and a continuous relationship with MUSE

Over the years the museum has hired staff: 9 assistants were designated between '11 and '14. This positively fed the work environment. Between '19/'20, the definition of permanent contracts indicated the maturation of the working group. Additionally, the museum is recognized as a contributing institution by the local municipal administration, which acknowledged the importance of the role and constant dialogue with between the museum and local schools in Ledro. The MoU bertween the insitutions is based on enhancing the knowledge of local environments.

The close contact with the school environment has allowed ReLed to develop efficient and effective tools. The constant interaction with the school system in Ledro and the Basso Sarca, which began in 1990s, had led to a joint MoU focused on activities dedicated to children and pupils in elementary and middle schools. Each school year is given a specific theme to explore in connection to the Ledro territory and environment.
The work focuses on the development of durable instruments like agreements and MoU that can guarantee the continuity of activities and projects beyond the mandates of museum staff, school directors, teaching personnel and administrations.
It is important to connect schools with their wider environment. The museum, together with its offices and staff, is an active educational collaborator in support of teachers. Visits in the environment, both cultural and natural, are not a limit to the educational development of school programs, on the contrary they offer the chance to enhance the learning and educational effort of teachers.

Entirety

Local

Museo delle Palafitte Ledro | Schools

MUSE and its territorial network of museums

The iconic building of MUSE designed by Renzo Piano.

MUSE

Engagement activities organised by MUSE.

MUSE

The Science Museum of Trento, MUSE, opened in 2013 in a requalified industrial area of the city of Trento. The museum, designed by Renzo Piano follows the principles of eco-sustainability and covers 12.600m2 divided into six floors and a tropical greenhouse. The museum and its architecture display the global variety of terrestrial habitats from mountaintops to sea-level, represented by the African tropical forests and the most relevant dinosaurs exhibition of the Alps.

The visitor engages with and understands the consequences of climate change and is exposed to science and technological information in a clear and simple manner, through captions, audiovisual material and visual effects. It is a museum that wants to make a difference and be an active player in the development of its community; the organization has moved from research-, education-, and communication-based activities towards new ways of connecting the museum’s agenda with local and international sustainable development goals with and for communities, policy- and decision-makers, as well as public and private economic actors.

MUSE is the heart of a lively territorial network of museums and visitor centers, including the Pile Dwelling Museum of Ledro, that are dealing with multiple disciplines as well as local and global dynamics.

The ability to ask questions can be a synthetic way to define research, the educational process and, in general, culture. By focusing on the question and not the answer, MUSE was able to question itself and interact with the public. The museum has opened itself to a new urban design of the city in which it is inserted; involving the inhabitants of the territory and interacting with strong and recognized players in the local economy. It managed to build its own museological and museographic project by engaging in a dialogue with the city.

Alongside the "classic" activities of exhibiting, presenting, educating, the current trends see museums practicing new ways of operating that connect them with the development dynamics of local communities, decision makers and businesses.
The relationship with the territory and the private sector is not restricted to the notion of "sponsorship", as it is generally understood. We focused on creating relationships of mutual interest: companies seek to grow their values, fostering development, innovation, employment, and territorial branding, which are all elements that are well practiced in a museum. This relationship has generated new languages and new relationships which have been translated into exhibition spaces, events and in other collaborations.
The educational and lab activities, the style of interpretation and mediation used for the various initiatives, and more general museum's ways of communicating have been often integrated as part of corporate mentoring, coaching and empowerment.

Companies have create and co-create cultural proposals with the museum, applying corporate themes that are functional to the museum.

Entirety

Local

MUSE - Science Museum

MUSE Network

ReLED - Ledro Museum Network

ReLED Rete Museale Ledro | Ledro Museum Network.

ReLED

Pile Dwelling Village.

MUSE

The ReLED Museum Network was created in 2012 through a cooperation between the Municipality of Ledro the Science Museum of Trento and its territorial branch, the Pile Dwelling Museum of Ledro. This is not a new structure but a network of what was already present in the area, it is an innovative "way of working" that directly involves the Ledro Tourism Agengy and indirectly involves schools, cultural associations and tourism facilities in the area.
The network makes use of territorial management instruments such as the Network of Reserves of the Ledrensi Alps and the Biosphere Reserve of the “Alpi Ledrensi and Judicaria”, which is part of the UNESCO MaB designation.

ReLED involves over 70,000 people every year in workshops, guided tours, cultural entertainment activities that allow you to tell the Ledro valley through different disciplines: archeology, history, ethnography, natural sciences, geography and landscape. The Pale Dwelling Museum is the heart of these activities with over 40,000 visitors a year.

ReLED is today a small cultural company that actively involves (including caretakers, operators, officials, cleaning staff) over 20 people in an area that has 5500 inhabitants and id located 50km away from the regional city capital of Trento.

Ledro is in in many ways a frontier. The valley it is located on the border between the Province of Trento and the region of Lombardy. This was an advantageous situation for ReLED because it allowed the freedom to develop lateral thinking, capable of going beyond the narrow limits of the museum's archaeological discipline which has been able of transforming a marginal place into a “center of the world”. ReLED was born with a key vision focused on engaging and promote multiple professionals and work experiences.

A group works better than a single A close-knit group should be stable but also open to its members. It is important to ensure that activity that are carried out as part of existing jobs and not be based on voluntary acts.

At the basis of everything there is the passion that people have for these themes, which sustains the museum not only as a place of work but also as a means for mutual growth and a place of personal satisfaction.

Networking is not easy and requires a lot of effort, it requires taking one step back in order to be able to take two steps forward together.

We are aware that only a small part of museum visitors are specialists in the subject (4-5%) and therefore we need to be able to address a wider audience with specific and appropriate language.

ReLED is 40% self-financed. It actively contributes tolocal economy as an economic and cultural organization that has been able to think in economic terms without giving up content. There is the need understand development beyond infrastructures.

Culture is key to the Italian economy and ReLED has decided to invest in this by strengthening its human capital.

Entirety

Local

East and South Africa

The Greater Cape Town Water Fund

Matthew

Koehorst

East and South Africa

The Greater Cape Town Water Fund

Matthew

Koehorst

Capacity building on financial management

Training session to build local capacity

KMFRI

Committee members were trained on book-keeping, basic audit process, budget planning and selection of tenders for constructions. Using partners such as the National Bank of Kenya (NBK) to train new committee members and regularly provide refresher courses for existing members has been essential to enable the Bank to grow more independently, save cost, and retain modern banking operations. Youth, especially local students, were involved to assist in drafting proposal writing and record keeping, applying what they learn at school.

The Association members were trained on writing and submitting applications for World Bank funding through HMP, which is critical for future funding or to obtain development loans. They also learned to develop their Strategic Plan 2018-2022. This strategic planning has enabled the Association to have clear focus of where they want to go. Although., there is need to start developing a new Strategic Plan for the next cycle, where partners including Base Titanium, relevant County Government department and NGOs operating in the area can be mobilised to assist in the process.

Capacity building and infrastructure support has been provided by partners.
The need to have a local bank nearby in order to reduce the cost of travelling long distance for banking.
Opportunity is being created for local students and youth to appreciate banking as a profession and to consider it as a career in the future.
Obtaining loans no longer require a laborious process with long distance travel to a major town such as Kwale or Mombasa.
The County Government can now channel funds more effectively and fast to the local Community Cased Organizations via KKCSA.

Training of Trainers - Use locally built capacity to train others and replicate projects in the neighbouring communities.
When trainers emerge from among the community following effective capacity building campaigns, they are appreciated locally and emulated easily.
Knowledge learnt in various aspects of financial management and banking opens up new career possibilities for the young, which were previously obscure such as book keeping, of foreign such as Information Communication Technology (ICT).
Locally nurtured capacity through training of trainers is more effective because the lessons can also be conducted in the local language.

Mobilizing Community Members through Local Leaders

Mama Zainabu, Committee member

KMFRI

KKCA Committee Chairman, Mr. Mwabudzo with the recently recruited members list

KMFRI

Kinondo community recognised the need and importance of coalescing around a common vision in order to attain self reliance and improve their livelihood. They realised that while it is important to retain a strong leadership in the top management of the Bank, it is necessary to rotate members of the Committee regularly to enable members to introduce new ideas. The opportunity is available for any capable individual to join the leadership committee. This is done democratically by holding regular elections. In order for the bank to thrive, Committee members are encouraged to create awareness and to encourage local people and those from the wider Msambweni Ward to join KKCSA to save and obtain loans and related services.

Community share common values in culture, faith and tradition, and they are also affected by similar challenges.
Goodwill from the community living in Msambweni Ward and its neighbourhood.
Community engagement and empowerment.
Bank covers multiple needs for all categories of the local people.
Limited inclusion and involvement of political sentiments.

Knowledge of the local languages, culture and tradition is crucial for implementing processes.
Delay in approval processes is caused by limited number of experts from relevant departments in the County and National government.
Inclusion of the community project in the annual County Integrated Development Plans (CIPD) contributes substantially in ensuring project sustainability.

Manual for implementation of HMP