“Migration and Culture: how can our past educate our present?”
The annual presidency event was held on 23 and 24 May in the premises of the Conference centre of Ħaġiar Qim, while Malta is hosting the EU presidency. A high-level strategy meeting, it was primarily targeted at policymakers of EU member states as a means to raise awareness about what Europeana does in culture and education, and how it can help them in their own work. The purpose was to build on the ‘Europeana for Education Policy Recommendations’ designed in May 2015 during the Italian Presidency of the EU, and more specifically ‘Recommendation II. Prioritise the provision of ‘Fit for Education and Learning’ content by cultural heritage institutions and ministries’.
Understanding migration with digital cultural heritage
Our main objective was to come up with concrete suggestions on how cultural heritage institutions and ministries of culture can actively help educate school kids - and more broadly European citizens - about migration, building on ‘Recommendation II’. Progress and reflection on the Italian and Latvian presidencies events (2014/2015), facilitated by the Europeana Foundation, European Schoolnet and EUROCLIO were also evaluated.
Europeana Strategy meeting “Migration and culture: how can our past educate our present”. CCby; Photographer, Sebastiaan Ter Burg
Outcomes and recommendations will help us inform Europeana’s future #AllezCulture campaign focused on migration which will run during the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage. The next steps will involve the announcement of a set of implementable actions for stakeholders by September 2017.
Highlights
To get there, the event gathered 40 participants from the Expert Group on Digital Cultural Heritage and Europeana (DCHE) group and European Ministries of Culture and Education. A workshop was led to identify the needs of educators as well as the implementation requirements for stakeholders (policymakers, CHIs and Europeana).
Hon. Owen Bonnici MP - Minister for Justice, Culture and Local Government Malta at the Europeana Strategy meeting “Migration and culture: how can our past educate our present”. CCby; Photographer, Sebastiaan Ter Burg
Hon. Owen Bonnici MP - Minister for Justice, Culture and Local Government celebrated the work of Europeana and emphasized the role of cultural heritage accessibility. Highlights also include the presentations of Alain Thillay (Head of digital pedagogical resources department, Ministry of Education from France), and Leif Magnusson, Head of Operation at Mångkulturellt centrum from Sweden.
The event was also an opportunity to highlight a series of use cases from across Europe demonstrating the potential opportunities of migrants’ experience and expertise in the making of cultural heritage or education:
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Denis Detling, museum educator & director of Museum of Slavonia from Croatia
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Dr Maria Pisani, director of Integra Foundation from Malta
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Mila Ernst, project leader of Vijf eeuwen migratie from the Netherlands
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Maria Calafatis, SOLE founder & co-founder of The Cube from Greece
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Esther Fuertes, art historian, teacher, project manager of Tandem from Spain
We will publish the final outcome in September - stay tuned! In the meantime, take a look at some images from the event or some of the slides.