
All aboard! - The salutogenic museum project at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm
All aboard! - The salutogenic museum is a pioneering educational project in progress at the Swedish National Maritime Museums/Vasa Museum in Stockholm. The project is to make it possible for children and young people, regardless of their actual abilities, to benefit from, enjoy and take active part in the educational activities on an equal and dignified footing.
The project is being run jointly by the Swedish National Maritime Museums and the National Association for Disabled Children and Youths in Stockholm (RBU), Save the Children, Sweden, Handisam - Swedish Agency for Disability Policy Coordination, Children´s Department of the Karolinska University Hospital and the Swedish Institute for Special Needs Education. It is hoped that the project will inspire others to see working with accessibility as a challenge and an opportunity.
A new room for educational use will be created at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. The room will provide a total experience for all the senses and will encourage empowerment and provide new opportunities both for participating and for training. By integrating multi-functionality, the various educational aspects will also function as habilitation and active rehabilitation for children and youngsters aged from 6 to 14.
With the museum educators children should be able to work with and try out carious activities with their starting point in the 17th century warship Vasa. Three different themes are addressed: sailing a ship, life onboard and marine archaeology. Children can, for example, try working with the sails, navigating, making ropes, searching for and conserving archaeological finds, games, food, health, etc.
The project also includes a mobile version for use outside the museum in schools and children´s clinics of various sorts.
By developing a philosophy of accessibility we want also to develop the functionality of our operations. Instead of adapting we want to cater for different needs right from the start. With flexibility and an expansive focus that includes a diversity of needs the operations will develop both educationally and artistically but also ideologically and collaboratively.
The project has been inspired by Aron Antonovsky´s ideas about what it is that promotes health - the salutogenic perspective. Inspiration has also come from the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child with its four basic principles regarding what is best for the child, the child´s right to life and development, the child´s right to be listened to and the child´s right of access to these rights without any form of discrimination.
A goal of the project is to inspire others in this task of promoting access. The Swedish National Maritime Museums hope to provide a resource centre for other museums with a special interest in children´s rights and different needs. The new operation will open to the public in November 2008.
Contact: Carina Ostenfeldt, producer/project manager
Tel. +46 (0)701-10 56 13, carina.ostenfeldt@maritima.se
Further information: www.maritima.se/allaombord.aspx