On July 14-16, the Sergi Makalatia Historical-Ethnographic Museum in Gori hosted a training on the topic – First Aid for Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis. The three-day training was led by Ms. Rebecca Kennedy, a cultural heritage first aid expert from the United States who has many years of experience in the field.
The training was attended by the staff of the Sergi Makalatia Museum in Gori, as well as 25 employees of 11 museums from the Shida Kartli region. Participants received theoretical information on ways to protect cultural heritage in a crisis situation and participated in group practical exercises.
On the first day of the training, the issue of risk and damage assessment was discussed, after which the participants took part in three practical group exercises – they performed risk assessment for specific spaces in the museum, assessed the simulated damage to the artefacts and worked on the emergency documentation process.
The next day the trainer focused on the salvage of the museum objects after the disaster, followed by wet and dry salvage demonstrations. The trainer introduced the participants to the necessary materials and actions for saving the artefacts through practical examples.
On the last day of the training a large-scale simulation evacuation exercise was performed. According to the scenario, the participants were instructed to save the museum objects damaged after the earthquake and to perform salvage and emergency evacuation. Participants worked in groups to perform different tasks, such as: emergency documentation, salvage, triage, packing and moving of the artifacts to a temporary storage facility.
At the end of the training, the exercise was reviewed and the participants were awarded certificates.
The training was planned by the Georgian National Committee of the Blue Shield within the framework of the project “Planning for the Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage of Gori, Georgia”. The project is being implemented with the financial support of the ALIPH Foundation.
