A national Cultural Diversity Festival took place from October to December 2003. The festival provided and opportunity for museums, libraries and archives to explore and develop new approaches with their local communities, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) awarded £10,000 to MLA East of England to support the festival and to further develop the work of the regional Cultural Diversity Network. The money was used to support three pilot projects and to map cultural diversity across the region. The pilot projects were:
Celebrate - Bedford Museum and Bedford and Kempston Libraries worked in partnership with Asian communities around theme of 'celebrate'
Harlow People - Essex County Council libraries, archives and heritage departments and Harlow library and museum worked with Chinese and Asian communities to explore theme of moving to Essex
Gypsy Voices - Association of Suffolk Museums and Museum of East Anglian Life worked with a Gypsy family to record their experience of life in Suffolk over the past 50 years
The pilot projects were evaluated and both of these initiatives are informing future work.
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