National Museums Liverpool celebrates yemeni heritage thanks to new grant

Young people from Liverpool’s Yemeni community will be able to help support their elders to connect with their cultural heritage thanks to a grant made to National Museums Liverpool.

The £88,000 from the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund will support NML’s House of Memories: Connecting with Yemeni Elders Heritage initiative which has been hailed as the UK’s first community-curated, dual language digital collection.

The project - co-created with the Yemeni community and the Kuumba Imani Millennium Centre in Toxteth – has been inspired by Abdul Wase, a student at Liverpool Life Sciences University Technical College and an L8 A BetterPlace volunteer, whose grandmother lives with dementia.

The 16-year-old says: “The continued war in Yemen prevents families from travelling to re-connect with their heritage. As a result, older people’s memories are fading, and young people are struggling to connect with their cultural roots.

“A loss of language and upholding cultural traditions is a concern for our older population and young people feel unable to bind their roots with British culture. This project will change lives.”

The project is set to be supported by collections access and research from the Fashion Museum Bath and online UK museum Yemeni collections.

House of Memories director Carol Rogers adds: “We were impressed and inspired by Abdul’s commitment to his family and community and accepted his challenge to create a community led Yemeni heritage package for the My House of Memories app.

Connecting with Yemeni Elders Heritage provides the perfect opportunity to connect Abdul and his peers, NML and museum partners with community held Yemeni collections.”

House of Memories is National Museums Liverpool’s museum-led dementia awareness training programme, offering training, resources and activities to enable caregivers to provide person-centred care for people to live well with dementia.