Embedding Community Engagement Across Your Organisation

Wednesday 27 February 2019
Horniman Museum and Gardens

This event explored approaches to integrating community engagement across more areas of your organisation’s work; how to support and encourage colleagues to embrace the ethos, understand how their role can contribute, and develop their skills and confidence.

Julia Cort, Community Learning Manager at the Horniman Museum and Gardens talked about their community engagement work and introduced their Discovery Boxes, Studio and World Gallery projects.

Rachel Harrison and Rana Ibrahim talked about their experience of working on the Multaka-Oxford Project, creating volunteer opportunities and using the Pitt Rivers and History of Science museums and collections as a ‘meeting point’ for bringing people together from asylum seeker and refugee communities.

In the afternoon we shared our experiences and knowledge in group discussions around:

What do we mean by ‘community’?
Why do community engagement?
Whose responsibility is it to do community engagement?
How do we identify and prioritise target audiences?
How to ensure a legacy that survives beyond a fixed term project?
How do we explain/demonstrate the value of community engagement work to decision-makers?

Waiting for discussions to restart, with the obligatory flipchart feedback!
Exploring the Discovery Boxes. 17 different community partner groups designed a box each, from a group of adults accessing mental health support services, to refugees and new arrivals. They each chose their own theme, objects and interpretation.
The World Gallery, which visitors enter via a ‘Wall of Voices’, featuring videos of individuals telling the stories behind their precious belongings.
The Studio is a new contemporary arts space which opened in October 2018. It’s inspired by the anthropology collection and co-curated over 18 months by the Collective, a group made up of Horniman staff, an artist and community members from support organisations across South London.
Our first meeting adjacent to alpacas, on a beautiful day.