ICCROM, the Prince Claus Fund and SARAT, a project on Safeguarding Archaeological Assets of Turkey have worked over the past year to translate the First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis Handbook and accompanying Toolkit into Turkish. The aim has been to ensure that people living in risk-prone regions are able to enhance their ability to secure their heritage and participate in their own cultural recovery.
First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis is a two-part publication created for the various actors involved in an emergency. It provides a practical method and a set of ready-to-use tools for securing endangered cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible. The user-friendly workflows help readers to plan and implement coordinated cultural rescue and risk reduction operations that involve local communities, heritage custodians, emergency responders and humanitarians.
The resource has multiple uses: it will help to improve emergency preparedness within cultural heritage institutions, serve as a reference to train others, and act as a guide for planning and implementing coordinated cultural heritage first aid.
Written with the key guiding philosophy of ensuring an inclusive attitude and respect for diversity while at the same time interlocking humanitarian assistance with cultural heritage first aid, this resource provides an essential, ethical framework that will lead to successful outcomes.
The cultural heritage first aid workflows and methodologies have been field tested in Haiti, Iraq, Syria, Nepal, Philippines and India, yet this is the first time they have been codified into a comprehensive tool that is accessible to anybody.
Through its interconnected programmes, SARAT has worked towards strengthening skills and increasing knowledge and awareness amongst heritage professionals, heritage-related people and the general public. Created by heritage professionals living in Turkey in response to the needs of the local context, the project initially came to life thanks to a large grant from the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund. In the first three years (2017-2020), SARAT was led by the British Institute at Ankara (BIAA), in partnership with Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (ANAMED) and the United Kingdom branch of the International Council of Museums (ICOM UK).
Translating the First Aid to Cultural Heritage publications into Turkish was one of the key activities of the project in its efforts to support online learning and awareness raising.
Additional translations of the Handbook and Toolkit into Spanish, French, Arabic and Farsi are underway. ICCROM invites voluntary translations of all its key publications in the field of Disaster Risk Management for Cultural Heritage.