They are learning that the Internet offers much more than just Facebook, games and YouTube and that our Museum is not a temple of glass display cabinets. The young participants of the programme „Museum. Share It!” discover the Emigration Museum’s exhibition in search of what is most interesting for them. For some it’s music, for others travel and dreaming of the big wide world. However, all of them will create individual and unique tour paths where they will soon be taking their nearest and dearest.

This exceptional”staff” of guides to the Emigration Museum in Gdynia, children aged 10-13, are taking part in a series of classes to learn about history, self-presentation and also how to use digital resources and multimedia devices. Classes with the use of tablets in the interactive exhibition, workshops using blogs, portals or digitalised collections show how to tell the difference between fact and opinion and how to assess the reliability of sources. During classes the Museum’s educators encourage the children to trust and help each other and persuade them that it is better to support your friends rather than compete and that there’s nothing wrong with relying on the tried and tested ideas of other people. All this is meant to help them to successfully assume the role of an important expert, a professional guide to the Emigration Museum in Gdynia on 10 December. On this day the first students of the project „Museum. Share It!” will have a reason to celebrate as they bring their parents, carers or neighbours to the Museum and take them around the exhibition according to their own scenario.

„Museum. Share It!” is a project scheduled to take place over two years and inspired by a popular Swedish educational programme entitled „Mini-Guides”. As part of the programme the Marinmuseum in Karlskrona enhances the cultural competences of children from families at risk of social exclusion. The Marinmuseum works in partnership with the local school in which immigrants, including refugees, make up 98% of the pupils. Thanks to the appreciation experienced by the young people during the programme, family and local community ties are strengthened as the museum reaches out to those who would often not take advantage of it. The project „Museum. Share It!” transfers the Scandinavian experience to Poland as a partnership with six different socio-therapeutic centres in Gdynia. The staff from these centres have taken part in a study visit to the Marinmuseum, undergone training in information literacy and the Action Learning method and used the assistance of the experts at the Emigration Museum in Gdynia as well as their Swedish counterparts. As a result, people who attendthe centres can expand the knowledge gained at the Museum during classes held at the centres.

” „Museum. Share It!” is not a coincidental title. We are hoping that the cheerful, positive and creative experience of project participants will encourage others to join. We want to show that the museum is an accessible place – everyone can come here and find something valuable, no matter whether they are lower-secondary school pupils who listen to hip-hop, young football fans or fashion enthusiasts”, argues Agnieszka Kaim, an education specialist at the Emigration Museum in Gdynia.

„Museum. Share It!” will culminate in a documentary showing the project in progress, as well as a seminar for cultural programme coordinators and educators, scheduled for autumn 2016. The project has received backing from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage as part of the „Media and information literacy” programme.

The project is being implemented in partnership with the Marinmuseum in Karlskrona, Stena Line and four Gdynia NGOs: the NON STOPSocial Education Association, the „Perspektywa” Association, the „Kreatywni” Foundation for Social Change and the „Zielona Myśl” Association for Professional and Personal Development.