Suva, Fiji – On November 10, the U.S. Embassy awarded the Fiji Museum a US$202,259 (FJD420,698) grant through the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP).
With this five-year award the museum will complete a full digital documentation of its holdings, making them accessible online to people everywhere. When complete, it will link Fiji’s diverse communities, as well as the world, to the Fiji Museum’s collection.
At the grant signing ceremony, Chargé d’affaires Tony Greubel said, “We are pleased to partner with the Fiji Museum to help preserve this important collection of the country’s cultural heritage.” He added, “This partnership will support the museum in collecting, recording, digitizing, preserving, and sharing objects and research materials that tell an important story about Fiji’s history and its people.”
Out of a total 172 AFCP submissions, the Fiji Museum’s project was one of only 22 selected for funding. Through this Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation project, the Fiji Museum will receive specialized training and knowledge that will bolster the museum’s ability to care for and share Fiji’s cultural heritage.
Today’s signing ceremony also marks the 20th anniversary of the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation, which has supported over 1,000 projects in 133 countries since it began in 2001.
The AFCP supports projects to preserve a wide range of cultural heritage, including historic buildings, archaeological sites, ethnographic objects, paintings, manuscripts, and indigenous languages and other forms of traditional cultural expression.