From 16 September, a series of four webinars "Fostering peaceful and resilient communities through museums and libraries" will be held online, organised by the Latvian Museum Association, the Latvian Librarians’ Association and the Latvian National Commission for UNESCO, with the support of UNESCO Participation Programme.
Webinars will explore ideas and approaches to strengthening communities in challenging times. The webinars draw on the methodology developed through the guide 'Localizing the Social Development Goals (SDG) through museums and libraries' developed by Henry McGhie (Curating tomorrow) in 2023 as part of a collaborative project between museums and libraries in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Moldova, and Georgia, supported by UNESCO.
Webinars will be held in English, moderated by Diana Walters and Henry McGhie.
Dr Diana Walters works as a facilitator, researcher, prison chaplain and activist for peace and social justice. Based in the UK, Diana has over 35 years of experience in heritage and peacebuilding. She has worked in over 20 countries including the former Yugoslavia, East Africa, Israel / Palestine, the former Soviet Union and South East Asia.
Henry McGhie runs the museum consultancy Curating Tomorrow, working to empower museums and similar institutions to contribute to sustainable development agendas, including climate action, human rights, Disaster Risk Reduction, biodiversity conservation and peacebuilding. He publishes an open-access series of guides on these topics. Henry works internationally, and is currently working on large-scale initiatives with ICOM and ICCROM on these topics.
16 September 11AM-2PM EEST
Building peaceful, resilient communities: an essential part of sustainable development
Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals are the international programme to address a range of social and environmental challenges and opportunities. This first webinar will explore the peace aspect of sustainable development, as the Agenda states "We are determined to foster peaceful, just and inclusive societies which are free from fear and violence. There can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development."
30 September 11AM-2PM EET
Peace, justice and strong institutions: working with SDG 16
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals are a framework for countries and organisations - and even individual workers - to use to guide their actions. 'Peace, justice and strong institutions', goal 16, provides a good framework for considering peace and resilience in terms of the goals we set, how we work with communities, and how we are accountable for our actions. The webinar will explore these topics.
14 October 11AM-2PM EEST
Museums, Libraries and Peaceful Communities: Examples from practice
Practical examples and case studies about peacebuilding through museums and libraries. This session will hear from people that are building connections and finding ways to be good neighbours using libraries and museums.
4 November 11AM-2PM EET
Navigating peacebuilding in times of conflict
In this session, the focus will be on the power of language and communication as both barriers and gateways to building understanding and strengthening community. What do we mean by 'peaceful' communities? Can we talk about 'hope' when the world feels so threatening? How can we really listen and respond to people's stories? How do we break the cycle?
The webinars will be streamed on the Facebook and Youtube pages of the Latvian Museum Association. No prior registration is required to join the webinars.
In 2020, the museum and library specialists of the Baltic States started a cooperation to spotlight and strengthen the unique role of museums and libraries in the implementation of the SDGs. In 2021, with the support of UNESCO Participation Programme, an online conference “Localising the Sustainable Development Goals through Museums and Libraries” was held with the motto: “Ask Your Library!” “Ask Your Museum!” (positioning museums and libraries as reliable and accessible experts of sustainable development). In 2022, Moldova and Georgia joined the partnership and several experience exchange meetings in the partnership countries took place, culminating with the conference “Localising the Sustainable Development Goals through Museums and Libraries II” in Riga and online in 2023. It was during the Riga meeting that the project partners decided to invite Ukraine to join the partnership and to dedicate the next conference in the series to Peace as the key principle of the Agenda 2030 and the key challenge of the region represented in the project. The conference was held on 28 May 2025 at the Lviv Culture Hub (Ukraine) and online; its video recording is available on the Youtube channel of the Latvian Museum Association.
The project “Fostering peaceful and resilient communities through museums and libraries” is implemented with the financial support of the UNESCO Participation Programme 2024-2025. The conference was co-organized by the Lviv Culture Hub (Ukraine), created at the initiative of UNESCO and the Lviv City Council, with the support of AECID.
Contact information:
Inga Surgunte
Latvian Museum Association
E: inga.surgunte@skaidrs.org
T: +37129953235
