A new London-based organisation aims to establish a network of volunteers that can be deployed abroad on conservation projects at museums, historic buildings and archeological sites.
Heritage Without Borders (HWB), based at University College London (UCL), said its “big idea is that communities in developing countries will be able to tap into valuable skills that would otherwise be too expensive to obtain, while HWB volunteers will gain life and professional skills”.
The scheme hopes to recruit recent graduates and heritage professionals. Its first two projects, lined up for September, involve training heritage specialists in Merv, Turkmenistan, and delivering a week of conservation training at the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo.
HWB co-director Sally MacDonald, director of museums and collections at UCL, said: “We are aiming to work in situations of poverty and post-conflict. Where a country or organisation is well resourced, they can and do buy in services from consultants or, indeed, from universities, as is happening all over the Gulf at the moment.
“We are looking at the kinds of projects that simply wouldn’t be able to access skills otherwise.”
The other co-directors are Dominica D’Arcangelo, an archaeological conservator, and Melina Smirniou, a conservator at the British Museum.
The pair initially founded the Conservators Without Borders organisation, which ran a series of conservation projects in Jordan, Greece and Peru after receiving a UCL grant.
“Heritage Without Borders is ambitious, but as far as I’m aware, there is no other organisation like this in the UK,” added MacDonald.
“Our aim is to be working on five to seven projects after a period of five years.”
The organisation, which works with governmental and non-governmental bodies, will also focus on areas such as collections management, cataloguing and digitisation, as well as issues relating to exhibitions and public outreach in partner institutions.
HWB is a social enterprise initiative financed primarily through grants and donations.