The project proposes to train a mixed group of disaster risk management professionals, emergency responders, military personnel, humanitarian aid professionals, leaders of heritage communities, and cultural heritage professionals. The end goal is to facilitate coordination between actors and integrate cultural heritage into existing emergency management.
By opening the training beyond the cultural sector, ICCROM aims to make a breakthrough in standardizing procedures for safeguarding cultural heritage during major and complex emergencies and incorporating them in existing local disaster risk reduction, emergency response and humanitarian assistance.
The project combines blended learning with direct on-the-ground application of methods and tools discussed during the training. Project activities include four weeks of in-person training, the development of two learning packages on heritage in peace-building and community-based disaster risk management for cultural heritage, two months of online pre-course mentoring and six months of structured follow-up of context-specific projects in participant countries of origin.
Mentors are selected from our network of course alumni, paying special attention to those who have been active since their training in strengthening local networks, implementing advocacy or capacity building initiatives, or who have been directly involved in cultural heritage emergency response. Each mentor guides three to four participants who have cultural, linguistic or regional affinities. This helps to stimulate long-term relationships, which in turn helps to support the follow-up phase of the training.
The key resource for the pre-course mentoring is the First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis Handbook and its accompanying Toolkit.
The four-week in-person workshop includes simulations, group work, structured presentations and table top exercises. The workshop prepares our participants and mentors to act as change agents. They will gain the knowledge and skills to build networks, train others, and establish on-the-ground coordination mechanisms between civil protection, army, humanitarians, cultural heritage institutions and the affected local communities.
The follow-up phase consists of participant field projects, which they will be required to outline during pre-course mentorship and refine during the in-person training.
The success stories and lessons learned in the follow-up phase will be collected and will be compiled in form of a publication with the help of mentors.
Partners
Swedish Postcode Foundation, Smithsonian Institution; Prince Claus Fund; UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA); ICOM-ICORP Turkey; Italian Civil Protection Department (Dipartimento Protezione Civile); Italian Ministry of Culture (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, MiBAC); Italian Fire Brigade (Vigili del Fuoco), Special Office for the Reconstruction of Umbria (Ufficio Speciale Ricostruzione Umbria) Italian Red Cross (Croce Rossa Italiana, CRI), The Municipality of Norcia and the Carabinieri.
Countries represented
Chile, Egypt, Estonia, Georgia, Honduras, India, Iraq, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, South Sudan, Spain, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine and the United States.