Last month, ICCROM’s FAR programme led two full-day sessions on damage and risk assessment for cultural heritage as part of PROCULTHER-NET's advanced trainings on protecting cultural heritage in emergencies in line with European standards. The sessions’ goal was to increase the integration of cultural heritage safeguarding in the Union Civil Protection Mechanism’s (UCPM) responses to disasters – building on the work ICCROM has been doing with UCPM and the Italian Civil Protection since 2017.
The trainings, held 6–10 and 20–24 March in Volterra, Italy, were organized by PROCULTHER-NET – Protecting Cultural Heritage from the Consequences of Disasters-Network – an initiative co-funded by the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DGECHO) in the context of the UCPM.
Building on the PROCULTHER project, PROCULTHER-NET will run from January 2022 until June 2023. The project aims to build a community committed to protecting cultural heritage during emergencies within the framework of the European Civil Protection Knowledge Network and to promote multidisciplinary exchange of best practices to support and complement the European Union’s efforts in the field of civil protection.
ICCROM is a part of a consortium made up of the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers–Civil Protection Department (Italy), as coordinator; the Ministère de l’Intérieur–Direction Générale de la Sécurité Civile et de la Gestion des Crises (DGSCGC) (France); the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Regional Government of Castilla y León–JCyL (Spain); and the Ministry of Interior–Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) (Turkey).
In both five-day training sessions, FAR Senior Programme Leader Aparna Tandon and Programme Assistant Jui Ambani led full-day sessions on damage and risk assessment. The workshop trained 60 diverse professionals, including representatives from national civil protection and cultural heritage experts from EU Member States, as well as UCPM Member and Participating States.
The training considered the institutional and legal framework for civil protection and cultural heritage, as well as practical and operational issues related to missions within the UCPM framework, providing an in-depth focus on techniques and measures for securing cultural heritage.
Using our ISO standard approved First Aid to Cultural Heritage methodology, the FAR team delved into some of the most pertinent topics, such as evacuating different types of heritage, salvaging damaged objects, and performing damage and risk assessments, transferring knowledge using interactive, hands-on exercises. The ICCROM FAR team also mentored the participants in a scenario-based disaster simulation that allowed them to practice securing at-risk movable heritage.