During the month of April, 22 heritage professionals from all over the world, but mainly from areas ridden by conflict or natural disasters, will be in the Netherlands to participate in an intensive training in ‘First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis’.
The First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis (FAC) course aims to generate proactive cultural first-aiders, who will have the ability to protect cultural heritage within extreme conditions as well as work in tandem with other humanitarian actors amid an unfolding emergency.
The training has been developed and organised by the Dutch National UNESCO Committee, the Smithsonian Institution and the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), with the help of many partners in the Netherlands.
The Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Global Heritage and Development is proud to be one of these partners. It financed and co-developed a digital learning environment and registration of parts of the training (for future training purposes).
In 2014, the cultural heritage field celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Hague Convention which is still the only widespread legislation that establishes international standards for the protection of cultural property during armed conflict. In honor of that anniversary, the 2015 First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis course will take place in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. In an inaugural partnership, The Netherlands National Commission for UNESCO, ICCROM and the Smithsonian Institution have joined hands to organize this course.