A positive review of the Winsome Project

This week, we received the evaluation report from the Dutch National Agency (NA) regarding Winsome, an Erasmus small scale partnership project that we undertook in collaboration with the School Life and Education Museum (Athens) and the Dutch National Museum of Education (Dordrecht).

Over the past two years, this project made efforts to engage with migrant newcomers from a variety of backgrounds, using school experiences to forge connections with the culture in which they found themselves (dis-)placed. For us, it lead to a lot of genuinely positive experiences, but it also challenged us in some areas. All combined, however, we look back on this project and our collaboration with our partners quite fondly.

The NA evaluation report appreciates that our needs analysis and best practices collection were very interesting and helpful, and is providing attention to the specific needs of the groups. They also saw that we engaged seriously with migrant groups, and that this was reflected by later return visits. On the other hand, the project was see to treat “migrants/newcomers” too much as a single group, and not paying enough attention to the vast differences within that category. Therefore, more attention needs to be given linking the country of origin, for instance in educational material, and more interest is needed in the specific (ethnic, but also social and professional) background of the migrants. A further point of criticism was made about the evaluation with the participants

The assessors also saw how the project provided new roles for museums and staff and helped train them through an engaging. However, they wondered how the museums would choose to stay in contact with the groups, also in the long term. What is the impact after a certain time?

Thankfully, both museum partners have committed themselves to continue working with these groups. We were grateful to see that the project was seen to enrich the project partners; the educational programs were of good quality, the partners worked very well together in planning and reporting, and the two dissemination events were well-organized. Furthermore the verdict on the project website was positive, as it was described as attractive and easily offering access to the right information. We agree with the NA, however, that dissemination of the project should have been a more continuous process, also on social media, rather than take place merely at the end.

The NA considered that the project format and output would be easily adaptable to other countries and situations, and offer a real contribution to EU priorities regarding the integration of newcomer groups, but also further collaboration between heritage institutions in member states.

We are, obviously, very pleased with these conclusions and hope to further expand on the experience we gained through Winsome over the coming years.