The three-week Museum Enlivening Skills Workshop held from 13th August to 2nd September, 2000 was the inaugural event of the PMDA premises in Mombasa. It was the second workshop held for heritage professionals in sub Saharan Africa that specifically looked at how heritage professionals can work towards:
- Turning their museums and heritage institutions into lively places and
- Making museums and heritage institutions responsive and relevant to their communities.
The first such workshop was held at Mutare, Zimbabwe from August 3 to 21, 1998 under the PREMA 1990 to 2000 Programme.
PMDA’s workshop was designed to enable participants to acquire knowledge and skills with which they could analyse community needs and design relevant museum enlivening programmes and activities that involve and benefit the communities they serve.
The workshop aimed at addressing concerns raised about museums and heritage institutions in sub-Saharan Africa. In particular, that:
- Museums and heritage institutions are generally lifeless places and the communities they serve consequently do not see their relevance and value.
- Those communities that museum and heritage institutions serve are not involved in shaping museum and heritage collections, exhibitions and other museum activities.
The workshop targeted 20 curatorial, exhibition, interpretation and education staff as well as other staff responsible for the use of museum and heritage collections in English-speaking countries of sub-Saharan Africa, as well as English-speaking museum professionals from Angola, Mozambique, Mauritius and Seychelles.