Living museum officials receive training on social media marketing and general general management
A training session for living museum officials from across the country was recently held to share knowledge on marketing museums using social media as well as the general management.
The five day training session for officials from the Ju/’Hoansi-San Living Museum, OvaHimba Living Museum and the Damara Living Museum was the first of the two part training under the Museums Outreach Programme (MOP) focused on marketing and museum management.
Museums Association of Namibian (MAN), officer, Tuuda Haitula said they designed the workshop to be interactive and responsive to the needs of the museums.
“Participants were able to give their input and understood the importance of cultural heritage and why it needs to be safeguarded, as well as how they are contributing towards that,” he said.
Haitula said the idea of a local conservation kit was well received and participants are looking forward to having their objects and stories travel to different parts of Namibia.
“The conservation kit will be produced for any person in communities to learn and function as a custodian of objects, while schools are to receive teaching kits to empower the youth at an early stage,” he explained.
Goethe-Institut Namibia Director, Dennis Schroeder said cultural heritages provide individuals and societies with a sense of belonging and they feel grateful and privileged to support local living museums in their task to become sustainable and vital expressions of cultural legacy as well as living cultural practices.
European Union Ambassador to Namibia, Sinikka Antila said that cultural heritage is an important expression of cultural diversity that deserves to be protected and promoted.
“Through MOP our aim is to promote mutual understanding and learning, cooperation with local stakeholders and civil society that will solicit local participation, co-creation and local empowerment, therefore the MOP is an exciting and innovative initiative whereby we would like museums in Namibian to become spaces of cultural valuation that has economic benefit and facilitate social debate instead of static sites to visit,” she added.
Meanwhile the participants expressed their gratitude for the training session that taught them not only about marketing their museum on social media platforms like Facebook and Instragram but also the strengths and weaknesses of their establishments in order to identify opportunities for improvement.
The MOP stems from cooperation between European Union in Namibian, University of Namibia and Goethe-Institut Namibia supported by the Museums Association of Namibia.
