Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna has launched the 2013 edition of the Hands on Heritage educational programme. Targeting school children, this programme is focused on getting them more engaged with their rich cultural heritage, by literally providing them to experience episodes from our past. This programme forms part of the collaboration between the FWA and Bank of Valletta.

School children are invited to one of the many sites managed by Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna such as Fort Rinella or the Malta at War Museum, where specially trained animators engage the students in practical sessions meant to help them understand the more complex elements of our history and heritage.

The launch of this programme this year was held at Fort Rinella. Joyce Tabone, manager Media and Community Relations at Bank of Valletta met Mario Farrugia, CEO, Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna during the launching session of Hands on Heritage 2013.

“The Hands-on-Heritage programme offers students a unique opportunity to handle period instruments and tools and learn how they worked and how they were used,” said Mr Farrugia. “We bring what is normally seen on text-books or television to life while learning old skills and discussing issues of heritage and historical interest.”

“Participants learn how to Signal using semaphore flags and heliographs and lifting heavy weights using a pulley,” continued Mr Farrugia. “We also give them the opportunity to venture into the turbulent life of the Maltese in wartime Malta and experience living in air-raid shelters, rationing and continue with their lives despite the added hardships.”

“The Hands on Heritage programme is an integral part of the bank’s long-term partnership with Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna,” said Ms Tabone. “While preserving our history through restoration projects is one of our main priorities, keeping our history alive through our children is a very effective way of promoting knowledge about the rich heritage that the Maltese islands have encountered, through the ages.”