Interviewer: Mahmoud Mansi
“If a country wants to build a civilization for the future, it must start and end with its heritage and its youth”
Rawda Abdelhady
ABOUT THE INTERVIEWEE
Rawda Abdelhady is Founding Director of Raquda Foundation for Art and Heritage where she works on developing the community through various initiatives and projects. Rawda also works as a freelance Archaeological Conservator. Previously, she worked at Bibliotheca Alexandrina for 2 years as a Manuscript Conservator in the Manuscript Museum Laboratory – and a Researcher in Coptic Study Center.
Rawda behold an MA in Heritage Conservation and Site Management, BTU – Helwan University, 2020. In 2016 Rawda attained the Archaeological Conservation Diploma in the Faculty of Archaeology, Fayoum University. Rawda graduated from the Faculty of Arts – Egyptology Department, Alexandria University – in 2013.
THE INTERVIEW
HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Rawda, can you please share with us the common misperceptions about “heritage”, and the real meaning of it?
Rawda Abdelhady: The global definition of the heritage by the UNSCO is “Anything left by the ancestors”, so anything you can imagine or you cannot which is related to the past is a heritage. For determining the time of heritage, this varies from one county to the other, it used to be defined as any subject that has passed down through 100 years, but we found the UAE for example celebrating its heritage after only 49 years. Therefore, the concepts of heritage change every period according to the culture of each country. The heritage also is divided into 2 main categories; “tangible” heritage such as sites or buildings, and “intangible” heritage such as costumes, traditions, accessories, art, quotes, etc. Heritage could be natural or cultural, movable or immovable.
HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Can “heritage” be used as a tool to solve problems related to economy, business and human rights? How?
Rawda Abdelhady: I can divide my answer into 3 points; If we agree on the first definition of heritage as everything that surrounds us, then this means that we are talking about a concept related to all the fields surrounding us. So it is a field that needs permanent development, this development could be related economics, technology, research and others. In addition, those who work in heritage fields, whatever their specialty is, need constant development and interaction. The relationship here between domains and heritage is a continuous circle.
From another view point heritage affects the economy of countries, when USA started working on the film industry, it was always trying and until now to refer to its heritage by talking about cowboys and Native Americans, then it also began to “create” a brand new heritage by representing the “superhero” concept such as Batman, Superman and others. The goal behind this is to convey a picture of America’s political and economic entity to the whole world, even if it is an exaggerated image at times.
The third view point; each organization has tangible and intangible heritage, which may be represented in the organization’s production, ideas, values, and team. Preserving the culture of each organization while developing contributes to its uniqueness, such as the work systems in Google and their famous way of dealing with their employees, which makes them innovate differently, and that’s why the work inside Google became a destination to many talented calibers.
HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Your Master’s Degree thesis discusses the development of the heritage industry using technology, can you tell us more about that?
Rawda Abdelhady: I took full scholarship in the international master program of “Heritage Conservation and Site Management” which is a joint program between BTU in Germany and Helwan University in Egypt. I chose the topic of my thesis: Virtual Reconstruction and Conservation of Underwater Cultural Heritage, for two reasons;
1- because I am archaeological conservator, I was searching for a topic that combines the goal of conservation with modern technology applications,
2- because conservation and restoration methods are usually divided only into chemical and mechanical methods, which affects the object on the short and long term. That is why I have chosen working on virtual preservation and reconstruction of underwater cultural heritage, which contributes greatly to the documentation, interpretation and accessibility to virtual libraries and museums.
Egypt has rich underwater cultural heritage and Egypt has the first established institute on studying underwater cultural heritage. Now, after the Corona crisis, we have found a large number of museums and sites all over the world opening their sites with virtual reality displays. In addition to the virtual library and online centers which affects effectively on the education and research.
Virtual Life is the present and not only the future.
HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: You have worked a lot with youth, last project was AWHS. Can you tell us more about this project? Also, can you tell us what kind of management did you apply with youth?
Rawda Abdelhady: 12 years I started my volunteering journey in the civil society, specially the simulation projects, which helped me a lot to learn many issues about politics, economy and the diplomatic principles, in addition to the organizing and management such as public relations, logistics, academic content, etc.
I was thinking about how to integrate what I learned from my master’s program in heritage conservation approach and site management and between the benefits of the youth simulation projects, Hence the idea of “Alexandria World Heritage Simulation Initiative”. This initiative aims to teach young people the sciences and methods of heritage management, including heritage projects or heritage sites, by simulating the World Heritage Center of UNESCO, and knowing how to include the Alexandrian heritage sites in the World Heritage List in addition to Alexandria’s intangible heritage. Alexandria was the model that was used to apply this methodology because it is the richest cosmopolitan city in the whole world, not just Egypt.
The work on the initiative continued for a period of 3 months, the imitative was divided into 3 phases: The first was training phase which was taught by more than 30 professors and specialists in various fields of management, heritage and archeology. The second stage had to be an applied stage for heritage interpretation as local community engagement. The last stage was the conference that simulated the real conference of the World Heritage Center organized by UNESCO. The 70 youth participants represented the participating countries in the World Heritage Center, but the topics were focused on Alexandria’s heritage. They provided strong files on Alexandria’s tangible and intangible heritage.
The initiative’s team consisted of different committees that organized the whole project. The 5 committees were the following: (Academic Committee, Organizing Committee, HR, PR and Media). I was leading only the heads of the 5 committees and they were leading the staff who were dealing with the participants and the delegates, the whole number of the initiative members were more than 150 people plus the professors and lecturers.
HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: From your opinion and experience, what are the career challenges that Archaeological Conservators face in the Middle East and Africa?
Rawda Abdelhady: The big challenge is the lack of awareness, and the idea of sharing heritage awareness is not limited to tourism or history communities. As I clarified the meaning of heritage at the beginning of the interview, heritage is related to all fields, so the process of sharing awareness of heritage should be widely managed by decision makers and stakeholders such as all ministries, businesspeople, media and those responsible for education.
I will share 2 small examples; the first one is related to the crisis management which became an important science after the terrorist disasters all over the world. In 2011 and 2014 when Egypt faced the problems of terrorist attacks such as bombings and firing which affected the heritage sites too, the authority that was concerned with security and rescue was the Ministry of Interior in cooperation with the Ministry of Antiquities, which subsequently resulted in training on disaster management for the workers in the two ministries and they learned how to cooperate together. This methodology was applied to the whole world, not just Egypt. The work here is not just for archaeologists and this requires a lot of training, planning and support.
The second is more personal but is related to who works on heritage fields, I always find archaeologists unfamiliar with the seriousness and the importance of preserving heritage other than just the restoration and of course the public, although the field of preventive conservation decreases the causes of damage and thus reduces restoration processes. The basis for resolving this is to spread awareness towards the importance of heritage, especially economic importance, and not just moral significance, which will make the public and local communities preserve the heritage before the specialists.
HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: During 2019 you have participated in several epic conferences and events, World Youth Forum in Egypt & The summer school of Communication and Teaching Skills in Conservation and Science In Japan. Can you share with us what did you learn most in each experience?
Rawda Abdelhady: I was chosen to participate in the summer school of Communication and Teaching Skills in Conservation and Science, organized by the ICCROM which is related to the UNESCO, this summer school is hosted every year and they offer some scholarships for some applicants. I was the only Egyptian and Arabic participant and the youngest, and I took the scholarship. I learned new issues about heritage conservation education. One of these is that I didn’t know that the philosophy and dancing are important to learn and teach science which became one of my next dreams to implement in Egypt. Then I have been invited from the Egyptian Presidency to join the World Youth Forum in Sharm Elsheikh. You know the idea of being invited from our Presidency made me so cheerful that I am on the right path and my country supports youth and culture and know very well that it’s the future. I can’t forget when the ICCROM wrote in the scholarship letter that I represent my country and express her important current role, last but not least I would love to say that: If a country wants to build a civilization for the future, it must start and end with its heritage and its youth.