Sawa Summer School initiative for museology students

Sharjah - The Sawa school provides museology students from the UAE and the wider Mena region with a unique opportunity for knowledge exchange with their peers

Students from across the Middle East and North Africa participated in the Sawa Summer School initiative held at the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilisation held between September 3 and 8.

Sawa - which means 'together' in Arabic - welcomes German, Emirati, and now Mena participants interested in museum management and museology to learn from each other's experiences and expertise. The Sawa Summer School, is taught jointly by European and Emirates-based experts.
A joint collaboration between Sharjah Museums Department (SMD), Goethe-Institut Gulf Region, Staatliche Museen Berlin - Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, and University of Applied Sciences (HTW Berlin), the event is a follow-up to the first-ever intercultural Summer School held in Sharjah and Berlin in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

"Sawa is dedicated to sharing and exchanging experience and ideas in appropriate museum studies across continents and cultures and to encourage mutual learning," said Dr Gabriele Landwehr, executive director of the Goethe-Institut Gulf Region.

Summer term of knowledge

Manal Ataya, director general of Sharjah Museums Department, added that "the Sawa Summer School is the latest in SMD's ongoing collaboration with Berlin State Museums and the Goethe-Institut Gulf Region. With the second Sawa 2016, we now broaden its scope by inviting Mena as well as Emirati students to come to Sharjah to learn together in view of establishing a continuous programme of Sawa summer schools based both in Sharjah and in Berlin."
The Sawa school thus provides museology students from the UAE and the wider Middle East and North Africa region with a unique opportunity for knowledge exchange with their peers that will aid their professional development.

According to Dr Susan Kamel, who teaches Muslim Studies at HTW in Berlin and is the academic programmer of the school, explained that this term, there will be three modules that address areas of appropriate museum studies such as 'Participative Strategies in Collecting and Documenting the present', 'Curatorial Strategies' and 'Development of an Interpersonal Plan for an Exhibition."
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• Sharjah