Cultural Heritage First Aid, Peace and Resilience in Times of Crisis

Location

Online sessions: Participants’ respective home countries
In-person workshop: Cairo, Egypt
Field projects: Participants’ respective home countries

Dates of the 3-phase training

Online sessions: 1 March – 30 June 2021
In-person workshop: 18 July – 1 August 2021
Post-training projects: 1 September 2021 – 31 March 2022

Application deadline

29 November 2020

Organizing partners

In cooperation with Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities 

This training activity is being offered in the framework of the international project, Alliance for Cultural Heritage, Peace and Resilience.

A unique opportunity to learn and practice

Culture cannot wait. Whether it is the rescue of ancient manuscripts or the careful salvage of a destroyed heritage building, affected communities will always strive to protect their cultural heritage following a crisis. But where does one start – especially when conflicts and disasters coincide with a health crisis?

Are you interested in learning how to safeguard cultural heritage in complex crises, build resilient communities and promote peace? Conceived for professionals and institutions in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan (MENAP), this regional training offers an interconnected learning and field-application opportunity.

The training is based on field-tested methodologies for multi-hazard risk assessments, risk mitigation, preparedness and recovery of all types of cultural heritage. A core component of the training is the three-step framework for cultural heritage first aid, which can be adapted to complex emergencies induced by overlapping man-made and natural hazards. The training will also address risks induced by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

The guiding philosophy of the training is to interlock cultural first aid with wider risk reduction and humanitarian assistance in order to promote peace and resilience. Emphasis on coordination and cooperation with mainstream risk reduction and crisis response agencies will be given in this training. The training will be tailored to ground realities in participants’ respective home countries. 

Cultural Heritage First Aid, Peace and Resilience in Times of Crisis

Key features of the training

  • 4-month online training (1 March – 30 June) during which participants will learn key concepts and methods for reducing risks for cultural heritage in complex scenarios, while promoting peace and resilience for local communities affected by conflicts and other hazard events. 
    In this first phase, participants will be provided with multilingual learning resources such as the First Aid to Cultural Heritage Handbook, to carry out a situation analysis of their own context and outline their post-training field projects. Online course sessions will be followed by mentoring support to participants, with the aim to provide context-specific advice for implementation.
  • 2-week in-person workshop (18 July – 1 August 2021), where participants will learn and practice how to provide first aid to different types of cultural heritage in order to promote early recovery (see video). The workshop will include simulations for mounting multi-actor responses, integrating cultural heritage first aid with humanitarian assistance in order to build peace. The workshop will include presentation of participant follow-up projects before a jury. Between 15 to 20 field projects will be selected and awarded seed grants for implementation, with the aim to enhance national or local capacities for the safeguard of cultural heritage, which is conflict sensitive.  
  • 7-month field project implementation (1 September 2021 – 31 March 2022), during which mentors will work closely with the participants to implement field projects in their respective home countries. The success stories, as well as the useful tools gathered from the field projects, will feature in an online publication for wider dissemination. 
     

Teaching team

The multi-disciplinary and international teaching team includes professionals who have been dealing with rescue and safeguarding of heritage in emergencies, tasked with managing emergencies or providing humanitarian assistance, and have facilitated rescue operations.

Four mentors will strengthen the core teaching team. Mentors will have prior experience in providing cultural heritage first aid and training others, and will be drawn from our alumni network of cultural first aiders in the MENAP region.

Cultural Heritage First Aid, Peace and Resilience in Times of Crisis

What will you learn?

At the end of the training, participants will be able to:

  1. Recognize different values associated with cultural heritage in a given context, and use this understanding to prioritize and provide ethical, as well as conflict sensitive first aid to cultural heritage, with an aim to promote early recovery.
  2. Analyze a given complex scenario with overlapping hazards and identify as well as prioritize risks to tangible and intangible heritage.
  3. Identify relevant actors and stakeholders in a given context who could help to secure and recover affected heritage.
  4. Carry out pre- and post-event risk, damage and needs assessment for all types of heritage.
  5. Develop multi-hazard risk mitigation strategies for different types of heritage within existing means.
  6. Secure, salvage and stabilize a variety of cultural materials and structures.
  7. Identify strategies for incorporating concerns for tangible and intangible cultural heritage into their respective local systems for risk reduction, crisis response and humanitarian assistance.
  8. Create effective teams in order to communicate and coordinate with multiple actors in a given emergency context while ensuring personal safety and that for their teams.
  9. Identify context specific pathways for using heritage recovery for building peace and resilience. 

Who can apply?

We seek highly motivated professionals who can put knowledge into practice and are proactive in sharing knowledge in and outside their own work context. Applicants, who have innovative ideas on how to use cultural heritage for building resilient communities, are especially encouraged to apply. Furthermore, priority will be given to applicants with 3-5 years of professional experience (mid-career professionals). Applicants have one or more areas of experience, such as:

  • Working in the areas of disaster risk management, civil defense, military and humanitarian assistance - protection of cultural heritage should be one of their key concerns.
  • Working in the field of cultural heritage (NGOs and public institutions).

Professionals who are engaged in community-based disaster risk management through their respective institutions/voluntary networks or have ongoing projects for protecting cultural heritage from conflicts or disasters are encouraged to apply.

Language: Participants should be able to converse and write in English. However, learning materials will be made available in Arabic and English. Mentors will provide advice and guidance in key languages spoken in the MENAP region.

Maximum intake: 20 participants

Please note this is a time-intensive training including simulations, sites visits, evening programmes and in-field applications. We ask for a full commitment of the participants’ time during all three phases of the training.

How to apply?

Use the online application form.  

Please note that your personal statement is a fundamental requirement. You are expected to write approximately 550 words on:  

  1. Describing the significance of the heritage you wish to safeguard through this training for local communities (buildings, objects and/or intangible tradition or practices) – attach photos (150 words)
  2. Describing how this heritage is threatened by conflicts and/or disasters? (200 words)
  3. How your role or position within your institution would enable you to work and safeguard this heritage as part of this training and its post-training phase? (200 words)

Deadline: 29 November, 2020

In order to finalize your application, the following digital files will be required when completing the online form:

  1. Portrait photo (allowed formats: gif jpg jpeg png tif tiff with a maximum file size of 3 MB)
  2. Official endorsement (allowed formats: pdf doc docx jpg jpeg png tif tiff with a maximum file size of 5 MB)

For further information, please contact:  far_programme@iccrom.org.

Short listed candidates will be invited for an online interview with the organizers and mentors in the first week of December.

A final selection of participants will be communicated by 8 January 2021 at the latest.

Scholarships, course fee, travel, accommodation and living expenses

Selected participants will be provided with scholarships. A scholarship includes:

  • course fee;
  • economy airfare to and from Cairo, Egypt;
  • accommodation and three meals per day for the duration of the in-person workshop in Cairo, Egypt; and,
  • local transportation related to course activities and excursions.

The regular ICCROM course fee is € 900 and includes course materials, coffee breaks and lunches during the course sessions, site visits and excursions.

Testimonials

Lama Abboud, FAC alumna 2016. Architect, Master in Restoration Preservation & Rehabilitation, Syrian Architectural Engineering Syndicate 
“Participants not only enhanced their knowledge but also started thinking differently about the role that cultural heritage can play in building peace in our society. Moreover, many cultural institutions and NGOs have asked me to replicate the course. I would like to highlight the importance of the international courses like FAC that, on one hand, help to build an international network of first aiders and on the other, generate excellent learning materials which help to rapidly transfer skills and knowledge in ongoing crises."

Alfred Topeka, FAC alumnus 2016, Department of Culture (Antiquities), Lilongwe, Malawi 
“The Department of Culture has benefited a lot since a number of its staff have honed the skills of rescue and stabilization of cultural relics in times of crisis. This team shall be responsible for developing plans for rescue and mitigation of disasters that so frequently affect the country.”

Jonathan Eaton FAC alumnus 2015, Cultural Heritage Without Borders Albania, & Jovana Mijatovic FAC alumna 2015, Urban Development Centre, Serbia
“We made many new professional contacts. These include the volunteers whom we trained (some of whom were new to us, while others we knew previously), as well as professionals from disaster response agencies in both Albania and Serbia. We also renewed previous contacts within the field of disaster response.”

Ihor Poshyvailo FAC alumnus 2015, Maidan Museum, Ukraine 
“It was a starting point for professional dialogue, public and expert discussions and implementation of initial small practical but important and timely steps in professional and institutional capacity building in the field of emergency planning and cultural heritage preservation in Ukraine. International best practices and strategies on FAC as well as practical tools have become accessible in Ukraine.”