MultakaOxford celebrates prestigious Museums + Heritage award
The MultakaOxford team were recognised at the 2024 Museums + Heritage Awards, winning Community Engagement Programme of the Year. These annual, global awards celebrate the very best in the world of museums, galleries, cultural and heritage visitor attractions.
MultakaOxford is a volunteer-led programme which brings communities together by sharing the rich knowledge and heritage of people from all over the world who have made their home in Oxfordshire. Multaka – which means meeting point in Arabic – is based at Oxford University's History of Science Museum and Pitt Rivers Museum and funded by a generous donation from Alwaleed Philanthropies.
Launched in 2017, MultakaOxford encourages a dialogue and environment of exchange and understanding by uniting diverse communities through art, culture and science. Involving and engaging newcomers to the UK with seasoned local museum volunteers, together they collaborate to plan and deliver activities that emphasise the connections between our global cultures.
A variety of roles and responsibilities are on offer, co-created to suit volunteers’ skillsets, ambitions and capacity, including interpretation, event planning, tours and presentations. Commitment levels can range from weekly drop-ins to in-depth research roles.
GLAM’s world-famous collections are the centre and a springboard for MultakaOxford initiatives. Volunteers are able to share unique cultural nuances and faith perspectives enhancing the explanation of artefacts from the Islamic world and beyond and deepening an understanding of the objects - whether aimed at school children or adults.
It’s a programme which prioritises empowering its volunteers with inclusive recruitment procedures and structured training, in regular consultation with the Multaka Community Advisory Board - made up of local partners, organisations and networks, museum staff and volunteers - to support and respond to changing needs of the community.
During 2023, MultakaOxford events involved 85 volunteers and staff, from 22 countries; reached 11,732 attendees in person, and over 300,000 worldwide with collaborations extending through global projects and conferences amplified on digital platforms and social media channels. It was a year in which MultakaOxford ventured beyond the confines of its museums and evolved into a vital contributor to Oxfordshire's broader societal fabric - connecting with audiences further afield.
For instance, in July "Alice Celebrates Eid" ingeniously transformed the city-wide ‘Alice Day’ festivities by marking Eid al-Adha with a street party featuring cupcakes adorned with Eid symbols, face painting, henna tattoos, and many other children's activities.
"Palestine: Piece of Me" was a week-long programme hosting master embroiderers and young leaders from Ramallah Refugee Camp, Palestine. This project encompassed collections research, displays of global embroidery, a commissioned film (created in Ramallah), drawing and sewing workshops, and talks by young leaders.
“Playground games from around the world" was a successful multicultural October half-term event, while The Ukrainian Bells choir, formed by volunteers, delivered a poignant series of performances during December’s St. Nicholas celebrations. School resource boxes and workshops were provided to cultural schools, such as the Al SHAM academy and Sudanese Saturday School, to generate discussion and broaden perspectives on Islamic art and heritage.
A new MultakaOxford satellite set up in Banbury and started "Baker’s World". Volunteers baked bread from their respective countries, using the proofing time for informative sessions on various topics affecting their lives. Didcot and other county-wide groups were also established to help forge friendships, find acceptance, collaborate, contribute and foster a community.
Mutual learning and benefit are at the heart of everything we do and MultakaOxford wouldn’t have become the award-winning collaboration it is without the people who work thoughtfully and creatively to plan and deliver spaces, events, resources, activities and displays within the unique settings of the History of Science and Pitt Rivers museums.
By extending MultakaOxford in 2023 through new satellite groups and community events across the city and county, and on digital platforms, the project continues to honour its museum mandate in providing access to cultural exchange and enrichment for all. This has been further enhanced with the support of global partnerships with the Alwaleed Philanthropies and the Multaka European network.”
(Nicola Bird, MultakaOxford Project Manager)
The Museums + Heritage Awards took place on the evening of Wednesday, May 15, 2024, at Hilton Park Lane, London.
