Learning and teaching museums. Training program for volunteers in the Roman Museums Erasmus Project

Project Title

Learning and teaching museums. Training program for volunteers in the Roman Museums

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

Museums are currently patrimonial agents that act transversally on the social and cultural context in which they are located, adding to their traditional functions of conservation and exhibition of the legacy they safeguard, those that respond to their role as institutions of reference in the field of education and citizen participation. Thus, in the European Year of Cultural Heritage, the Project aimed to evaluate and agree on the policies developed by the Museums for the recruitment, training and enhancement of their Volunteering. Civil society is empowered in the Museums through specific programs of Non-Formal Education for Adults, a sector of the citizenship that is totally interested in culture and that presents undertaking indicators.
For this reason, The Roman Studies Foundation undertook this Project in order to know and share practices and working methods on these educational programs for adults at an international level in centers of recognized competence.

The selection of partners included The National Museum of Roman Art (MNAR), the only center in the Iberian Peninsula, for its monographic dedication to the study of the ancient Roman colony Augusta Emerita. Besides, The Association of Friends of the Museum, with more than three decades of experience, is the civil agent through which the group of MNAR Volunteers originates and organizes. In addition, the Project has two other European partners that will make it possible to develop exchange and learn about other practices at the European level in this field, as well as to strengthen the Work Networks between reference Museums at a transnational level. These are The Museum of the Imperial Forums in Rome and The National Museum of Archeology in Lisbon.
The Project followed a working method that allowed, in the first instance, a very fruitful exchange of experiences between the responsible Trainers in each partner organization, through the 4 Transnational Meetings held.

At the same time, a communication program was started with the development of its own Website to publicize it: https://learningandteachingmuseums.eu/
On the other hand, an evaluation program was carried out that aimed to carry out a general diagnosis on the average profile of the volunteer groups and its incidence in the activity of the Museums, to later evaluate the training programs and their results on the activities carried out.
The evaluation made it possible to define three different models of volunteering, conditioned in part by the legislative framework of each country itself, and focused on three of its main functions, which complement each other, that is: training (Lisbon program), professionalization (Rome model) and participation (Mérida model). On the other hand, the impact and opinion of the program on the volunteers themselves was evaluated through questionnaire tasks (with questions like “smile text”, “open” questions, and “open and closed” questions), to measure the opinion of the general public and of the program participants themselves, on ‘Competencies, suitability and functions of volunteering’. All competencies obtain high scores, between 3.1 and 3.9 (out of 4). A second aspect studied has been the subjective perception of the high or low level of competencies necessary to be a volunteer, both for any unknown person and for our vision of ourselves.

All the accumulated experience, as well as the legislative content necessary to contextualize the Cultural Volunteering programs, were described in a Final Document ‘GOOD PRACTICES FOR TRAINING VOLUNTEERS’, available on the Project Website and on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform:

Documents

The direct participants in the Project have been, in the first place, the technical teams of the partner organizations (12 people) as well as the groups of volunteers involved (10 volunteers in Lisbon, 52 in Rome and 21 in Mérida). In addition, experts in museum policy have been involved (4 people). Finally, the development of joint public activities has allowed up to the present time to reach an impact of 264 people, through views on the MNAR YouTube Channel.
The knowledge acquired through the exchanges of good practices, their formalization in a Final Document as well as the continuity of the training programs in the partner organizations will allow the long-term development of new high-quality programs dedicated to the training of Adults in the field of Museums.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 40600 Eur

Project Coordinator

Fundacion de Estudios Romanos & Country: ES

Project Partners

• DIRECAO GERAL DO PATRIMONIO CULTURAL
• Asociación de Amigos del Museo de Arte Romano de Mérida
• MINISTERIO DE EDUCACION, CULTURA Y DEPORTE
• ROMA CAPITALE