Sustaining Jordan’s heritage and cultural identity

Social studies in Jordan have found that school-age children to university students are poorly engaged in learning about their rich and diverse cultural heritage, putting the future of Jordan's cultural identity at stake.

This project is about improving the accessibility of Jordanian museums to young people and strengthening the capacity and sustainability of Jordanian museum education, through staff training, partnership building and experimental educations events.

In the first year of the project essential partnerships were established with the museum and heritage sector, including an unprecedented formal partnership of six UK and Jordanian museum-related organisations, and an expanding, informal network of 22 Jordanian organisations.

The partnership provided a training programme in Jordan on museum communication and education, hosted by four museums. Participants attended from 20 cultural institutions across Jordan and many confirmed they had implemented changes in their museums because of the training. The team also provided a wide-ranging training programme in north east England for staff from Jordanian Department of Antiquities Museums and other heritage organisations.

The project is different from any other project we have seen, it is changing the way people are thinking about Jordanian museums. A lot of people are getting motivated, they saw hope and felt they had someone on their side working to improve practice, strategies and procedures in the sector.

Lena Bakkar, Director of Archaeological Sites Management Directorate, the Department of Antiquities of Jordan

This project was shortlisted for the Newton Prize 2020.

Watch a short film about the project on YouTube.