The First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis Handbook is a two-part publication created for the various actors involved in an emergency. It provides a practical method and a set of ready-to-use tools for securing endangered cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible. The user-friendly workflows help readers to plan and implement coordinated cultural rescue and risk reduction operations that involve local communities, heritage custodians, emergency responders and humanitarians.
This Handbook and its Toolkit explain ‘cultural heritage first aid’: the immediate and interdependent actions taken to stabilise and reduce risks to endangered tangible and intangible cultural heritage, with the aim of promoting its recovery. Through a field-tested, three-step framework, it establishes when and how to protect endangered cultural heritage, and indicates all those who could assist in such operations. The steps and workflows provided can be adapted to different types of emergencies and their specific contexts.
This handbook aims to serve as a:
- Reference to train cultural first aiders, emergency responders and volunteers.
- Tool to improve the emergency preparedness and response plans of cultural heritage institutions.
- Guide to assist in implementing first aid operations in conjunction with humanitarian relief and recovery.
It identifies aspects of cultural heritage first aid, the coordinated implementation of which could help reduce the affected population’s vulnerability. By doing so, they hope to advocate for the inclusion of cultural heritage first aid in international, national and local emergency response and humanitarian relief systems.
This resource and its accompanying toolkit are a work-in-progress, and the creators are interested in receiving feedback so that we can continue to ensure relevance to the field and quality information for those who need it most.
You can download this handbook for free here.
