$500 000 redesign for Children’s Gallery

Article by Gercine Carter

The Children’s Gallery at the Barbados Museum is getting a $1/2 million upgrade and redesign next year.

Director of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society, Alissandra Cummins, said yesterday exhibitions like that now mounted in the gallery required change within seven- to ten-year periods, but financial constraints had prevented this since the gallery’s last update in the 1990s.

However, the Maria Holder Memorial Trust has responded to that need, donating the funds for the upgrade, which Cummins estimated would be in excess of $500 000. The museum’s deputy director Kevin Farmer is coordinating the project.

Cummins said she wanted to see the museum used more widely as a resource by schoolchildren.

“We are used quite a lot, usually by visiting school groups, and we have a strong commitment to ensure that teachers are briefed and we do give guided tours to school groups” she said.

But while she acknowledged that aspect of the museum’s outreach programme to schools was “strong”, she also observed: “We have a less strong programme in terms of the utility of the museum’s facilities in terms of individual schoolchildren. They are doing it more and more because they are undertaking various projects for the CXC and other curricula activities, but we think more can be done.

“We need a stronger association between the museum and the schools to make that happen,” Cummins said.

The director added the museum tried to ensure what it produced was “of value to the various activities indicated in the schools’ curricula, and we try to ensure that the schools are aware of what we are bringing out that will be of importance to them”.

For this reason, she said teachers, curricula designers as well as Ministry of Education representatives were being involved in the redesign of the Children’s Gallery.

Cummins spoke to the DAILY NATION minutes after the official launch of the 63rd edition of The Journal Of The Barbados Museum And Historical Society that contains a wealth of information that would be instructive to children’s studies. (GC)