Background
Heritage of Future Past is a project under the British Council’s Culture Responds to Global Challenges programme – celebrating the transformative power of arts and culture to change attitudes, support more equal societies and the protection and promotion of cultural expression, diversity and heritage at risk.
Heritage of Future Past has been implemented in Viet Nam since 2018, working with diverse local communities to safeguard and promote heritage at risk, and to create opportunities for local people to directly contribute to and benefit from the safeguarding and promotion of their cultural heritage. For more information about Heritage of Future Past, please visit this link.
We are looking for dedicated partners to provide technical support to individuals, groups, and communities in designing and realising action plans to safeguard and promote their cultural heritage. Our project is community-driven and people-led and are devised and managed with local partners on the ground, supporting local communities to promote their own cultural heritage, leading to economic growth and improved social welfare.
Details on what we are looking for in a potential partner are provided below. Please send a Proposal using the response form provided to vnarts@britishcouncil.org.vn before 26 September 2024.
By issuing this Call for Partner, the British Council is not bound in any way to enter any contractual or other arrangement with you or any other potential supplier.
What are we looking for in a potential partner?
We are looking for a partner who can provide technical and management support to individuals, groups and communities to help them design and realise action plans to safeguard and promote their cultural heritage, and to use cultural heritage as a resource to elevate local challenges. Support may come in the following forms:
(1) Co-designing a series of workshops to connect and strengthen capacity in cultural heritage sector, undertaking a people-centred approach in heritage protection to improve community livelihood. The partner would be instrumental in:
- Needs assessment: Ability to conduct thorough needs assessments to understand the specific requirements and aspirations of local communities regarding their cultural heritage.
- Capacity building programme development: Ability to design a capacity building programme that addresses local needs, covering topics such as project management, sustainable and long-term community development, community heritage management planning (including identifying, inventory building, heritage asset recognition, management, and promotion), local products development and connection with new market, heritage tourism development and management, and cross-cutting issues such as gender balance, women and girls’ empowerment, cultural authenticity, local ownership and decision making, etc.
- Inclusive and interactive approach: Ability to design and deliver activities that are participatory, culturally sensitive, gender-sensitive, and accessible to all community members. The target groups are cultural heritage professionals/organisations, heritage practitioners, community members including women and girls, indigenous peoples, young people, from less visible and harder-to-reach communities.
- Community of Practice: Ability to facilitate networking and knowledge-sharing among workshop participants to build and maintain a robust Community of Practice focusing on cultural heritage safeguarding. Between January and March 2024, a Community of Practice as part of Heritage of Future Past was developed by the British Council, actively engaging with more than 250 members including project partners, grantees, and individuals/organisations are currently working together to reflect, share best practices from Heritage of Future Past and in cultural heritage sector. We will look to explore how this Community of Practice can be self-sustaining.
- Follow-up and support: Provide ongoing support and follow-up after workshops to help communities implement the knowledge and skills acquired. It is planned that by the time the training courses take place, a call for grant applications would have been launched. Therefore, those who participate in training will be encouraged to respond to this call, and seek to learn skills, knowledge and process that would benefit them in developing and implementing projects and initiatives using cultural heritage as a resource to tackle local developmental challenges.
(2) Co-creating and managing the Cultural Heritage Grant Programme with the British Council through a transparent process ensuring equal opportunity. This process involves an open call, information session, panel selection, disbursement of grant funding, support to all grant recipients, and monitoring, evaluation and learning. The purpose of the grant programme is to directly engage with and benefit local communities in the safeguarding and promotion of their cultural heritage. Management of the grant programme may include providing support, particularly management support i.e. monitoring of progress through regular meetings and field trips, evaluation of project results/outcomes, data collection, report writing, etc., to all grant recipients. This report offers information about the Community Cultural Heritage Challenge, a grant programme by the British Council supporting locally led initiatives between 2021 and 2023.
(3) Organising knowledge sharing and learning opportunities, such as roundtables, seminars, conference, etc. that involve community members/groups, heritage practitioners and professionals, researchers and academics, and relevant government bodies.