Non-traditional education using cultural heritage: A case study from Syria

This article explores the issue of using culture and cultural heritage as themes in non-traditional education to foster teamwork attitudes and leadership, research and presentation skills, in addition to looking at ones’ environment with a critical eye and valuing culture as an asset. It presents an educational programme where youth from Syria documented oral heritage, explored their cultures with photography as a probing tool and participated in creating public displays of their heritages. In this article, I describe the educational programme, its rationale, the employed concept of culture, faced challenges and learned lessons. Feedback from participants and host communities is discussed and questions for further enquiry are raised, including on the applicability of such programme to promote cultural diversity, the long-term effects on participants, and ways to highlight the value of cultural heritage towards the communities that own it when its continuity is threatened.