Sharing knowledge the key

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For the past 10 years, the Canadian Museum of Civilization (CMC) has been opening its doors to Aboriginal people wanting to learn more about museum practices, through the Aboriginal Training Program in Museum Practices, or ATPMP.

Each year, five participants are selected from among all those who apply, and those five will then spend eight months at the museum being trained in different aspects of museum practices.

During their time at the museum, the trainees can complete either a practicum or an internship, the difference being that the internship involves more structured training. Students who are attending university and who take part in the internship can also apply to the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College (SIFC) to receive credits for their museum training.

Jean-Francois O'Bomsawin is co-ordinator of the Aboriginal training program. He explained that, while the trainees or interns, are at the museum, they spend four days a week learning about the areas of museum practice that interest them, from collection management to archiving, media relations to programming new activities for the First Peoples' Hall. Then one day a week, the five interns will work together to develop an exhibition, which will open at the museum at the end of their term in April.

"They are acting as curators. They're developing the idea. They select the artifacts. They write the text. They go out front and survey the visitors. They are really involved, and they're doing the research and they're doing the project. That's their project at the end," he said.

The exhibitions created by the interns are small ones, O'Bomsawin explained, both because they only have eight months to pull it all together, and also because it prepares them for taking on similar projects within their communities, where exhibits would also tend to be small.

While the main focus of the training program is giving the interns the tools and knowledge they need to go out into their communities and work in, or even establish, local cultural centres or museums, the goals of the program go far beyond just that.

The program is also about sharing information, to the benefit of the interns, their communities, and the museum.

By coming to the museum for the program, O'Bomsawin explained, the interns have access to the museum's collections, and can find items that might belong to their community. In the case of human remains or funeral objects, those findings might lead to repatriation. In other cases, the interns may be able to share information with museum staff about the items, such as their traditional names and uses.

"I was an intern in 1998," O'Bomsawin said, "And I know from my First Nation, we had a lot of information on writing and language here at the CMC. And I was allowed to go there and look and find my material, and listen to my grandfather speaking. And it was amazing to know that the Museum of Civilization holds so many things that I was not even aware of. And being here helped my community to know what we have here, and also for myself, and for the museum to know more about my First Nation. So that's a really strong component of the program. It is the exchange of information."

The program helps develop networks and relationships. Through the interns, the museum can form lasting relationships with both the individuals and their communities, and the interns can not only develop relationships and contacts with the museum, but with each other.

O'Bomsawin knows those relationships are lasting ones, because the museum is still getting calls about loans or exhibition exchanges from interns who completed the training in its early years.

In April, past interns will have a chance to renew those relationships, as the museum hosts a gathering of all the past participants of the program.

So far, 58 people have completed the training and, over the 10 years the program has been offered, only three people have dropped out of the program.

Anyone wanting to apply fr the next session of the training program, which starts in September 2003, must submit an application by March 15.

For more information about the Aboriginal Training Program in Museum Practices, contact program co-ordinator Jean-Francois O'Bomsawin at 1-800-555-5621, or via e-mail at jean-francois.obomsawin@civilization.ca. You can also find out more about the program online at http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/at/atproeng.html.