The online 3-day workshop on “ Engaging Communities” took place from 5 to 7 November 2021. 

22 heritage managers from Africa (Ethiopia, Ghana, Gambia, Egypt, Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya, Morocco and Namibia) have received training on how to engage communities through heritage and for the benefit of heritage. This workshop have been supported by the UN Economic Commission for Africa, the African Union and the Heritage Management Organization as part of the “AU Year of Arts Culture and Heritage”.

During the course, participants familiarized themselves with the context of community engagement through heritage, discussed methodologies based on ethnography and oral history, and engaged in practical, both individual and group, exercises. By using the techniques demonstrated by the workshop’s instructors and getting involved with all exercises, participants can now understand better the communities that they might work with, and have acquired the knowledge on how to successfully engage communities.

The course’s instructors:

Dr Evangelos Kyriakidis: is the founding Director of the Heritage Management Organization. He has research interests in Mycenaean administration, Minoan religion and iconography as well as in ritual theory, history of archaeological thought and archaeological site management and planning. 

Dr Aris Anagnostopoulos: is the Public Director of the Heritage Management Organization. His research interests focus on the politics and poetics of the material aspects of the past in the present.

Dr Lena Stefanou: is an archaeologist and specializes in museum and heritage studies. She works at the Hellenic Open University and is also the Public Officer of the Heritage Management Organization. Her research interests are the ideological uses of the past in the present.