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Cincinnati Museum Center to develop exchange program with Kenyan museum

The Cincinnati Museum Center has been awarded $150,000 through Museum & Community Collaboration Abroad (MCCA) that will support a cultural exchange program with the National Museums of Kenya Lamu Museums in eastern Africa.

The Cincinnati Museum Center has been awarded $150,000 through Museum & Community Collaboration Abroad (MCCA) that will support a cultural exchange program with the National Museums of Kenya Lamu Museums in eastern Africa.

The National Museums of Kenya was established in 1910 by the then East Africa & Uganda Natural History Society that set out to preserve artifacts of the area’s colonial settlers and naturalists. Over time the organization has experienced a wide variety of changes, which most recently was sparked by their “Museum in Change” program funding in part by the European Union. This program has led the organization on a mission to open itself up and become a “custodian of heritage” for the area while representing five key values of being authentic, reliable, unifying, caring and authoritative.

“This announcement is great news for the Cincinnati Museum Center,” U.S. Representative Steve Driehaus (D-OH) said in a press release. “The Museum Center is one of our community’s greatest assets, and an important part of our local heritage and history. This award will allow the Museum Center to share that heritage across cultures, while bringing a broader understanding of other cultures into our community.”

The $150,000 grant was awarded by MCCA which is administered by the American Association of Museums (AAM) and funded by the Bureau of Educational & Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State. The funding is reportedly scheduled to continue through 2011.

By Randy A. Simes

Randy is an award-winning urban planner who founded UrbanCincy in May 2007. He grew up on Cincinnati’s west side in Covedale, and graduated from the University of Cincinnati’s nationally acclaimed School of Planning in June 2009. In addition to maintaining ownership and serving as the managing editor for UrbanCincy, Randy has worked professionally as a planning consultant throughout the United States, Korea and the Middle East. After brief stints in Atlanta and Chicago, he currently lives in the Daechi neighborhood of Seoul’s Gangnam district.