AAM Announces Inaugural Museums & Community Collaborations Abroad (MCCA) Grant Winners

WASHINGTON, DC (Nov. 12, 2007) – Schoolchildren and teenagers in Tajikistan, India, South Africa, Bolivia, and Mexico will connect with their counterparts in four US cities through the inaugural round of the American Association of Museums’ (AAM) Museums & Community Collaborations Abroad grant competition (MCCA).  A new partnership in cultural diplomacy between AAM and the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), MCCA is designed to strengthen connections between people in the US and abroad through museum-based exchanges.

“Cross-cultural skills are critical in today’s global economy.  The museums participating in these four projects will help people better understand themselves and one another by working together across borders, and the connections made will help develop innovative solutions for important community issues," said Ford W. Bell, AAM president.  “These projects demonstrate that museums can be key partners in bridging cultural differences and addressing social concerns.”

An independent peer-review panel of international museum professionals with experience in global collaboration selected four winning partnerships from a competitive field of fourteen applications.  The funded projects are:

•       Dear Mr. Mandela, Dear Ms. Parks: Children’s Letters, Global Lessons
  Michigan State University Museum, East Lansing, Mich.,
  and the Nelson Mandela Museum, Mthatha, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa
  
  In early 2007, Gregory Reed, the personal lawyer of Rosa Parks, announced a planned gift to the Michigan State University Museum of a collection of letters children wrote to Parks.  A similar collection of letters to another civil rights hero, former South African president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nelson Mandela, exists at a new museum in rural South Africa, the Nelson Mandela Museum in Eastern Cape Province.  Working together, the two museums will use these letters to raise awareness of the deep parallels between the struggles for racial justice in the United States and South Africa.  The partners will create a touring exhibition, an online gallery of the letters targeted at school-age children, and a CD-ROM from each nation to accompany the exhibition.  Local schoolchildren will be encouraged to write letters to their own heroes who embody the values of Mandela and Parks.  These letters will be posted in the virtual gallery and added to the exhibition at each venue.
  
  

•       Indo-US Science Center Diversity Dialogue & Cultural Immersion Project
  New York Hall of Science, New York City;
  National Council of Science Museums, Kolkata; and
  Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum (VITM), Bangalore, India
  
  For more than 20 years, the New York Hall of Science has operated a minority youth development program called Science Career Ladder (SCL).  SCL employs 200 urban minority high school and college students each year as “Explainers” trained to provide exhibit interpretation and science demonstrations to museum visitors.  Many explainers go to college with majors-and, later, professional careers-in scientific and technical fields.  With its partners at VITM in Bangalore, US and Indian museum educators and students will adapt this program for use in science centers across India to increase access to technical careers for minority youth.  Each museum also will develop public outreach and programming to allow staff and students visiting from the partner nation to interact with the local community.
  
  

•       Inside/Outside/North & South
  Museo de las Americas, Denver;
  El Museo Nacional de Etnografia y Folklore, La Paz, Bolivia; and
  Gallery "Casa del Caballero Aguila", Puebla, Mexico
  
  Working with their communities, three museums in Colorado, Bolivia, and Mexico will create a youth-curated multimedia art exhibition, featuring works by local students exploring stereotyping and prejudice.  Each museum will enlist high school students from local majority and minority ethnic groups to engage in creative multimedia activities.  Guided by museum educators and local artists, students will create artwork and critique their peers’ depictions of tensions between majority and minority populations and ways to build understanding between the two groups.  The collaboration will culminate in a final joint exhibition, which will include visual, oral, and literary components.  The exhibit will travel to all three sites, complemented by public forums and discussions.
  
  

•       Promoting Volunteerism to Improve Zoo Safety, Education and Animal Care
  Black Pine Animal Park, Albion, Ind., and
  the Dushanbe Zoo, Dushanbe, Tajikistan
  
  For several years, three schools in greater Fort Wayne, Ind. have enjoyed a pen pal relationship with students in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.  The Indiana students were shocked when one of their pen pals was injured while visiting the Dushanbe Zoo.  The students found a sponsor organization, the Black Pine Animal Park (BPAP) of Albion, Ind., with whom they could work to help the Dushanbe Zoo prevent future accidents and provide a more family-friendly visitor experience.  With funding from MCCA, the Black Pine Animal Park, The Dushanbe Zoo, and schoolchildren in both nations will work together to develop educational materials for visitors and to promote community involvement in the zoos through volunteerism.

MCCA awards are given in amounts between $60,000 and $100,000.  Each of the successful applicants will match 50 percent of the award amount with locally contributed, direct, or indirect funds and services.

Background and History

In 1998, AAM undertook a major strategic initiative called “Museums and Community”.  With support from the Ford Foundation, the Wallace Foundation, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation, “Museums and Community” gathered sound and current data and documented best practices by which museums can work in partnership with their communities, expand their civic engagement, and involve new and diverse audiences in their work.

MCCA extends the philosophy of “Museums and Community” beyond US borders by inviting museums abroad to partner with US institutions to create new models for community-focused international partnerships.  Through a robust application and partner-matching process, MCCA provides museums with a framework for initiating international collaboration, as well as tools for engaging communities beyond museums’ walls.

MCCA also builds on a 25-year history of collaboration between the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and AAM on the International Partnerships Among Museums (IPAM) program.  IPAM linked museums in 38 states and the District of Columbia with institutions in 84 countries in all regions of the world.