Traditional Culture Centre “Pusol School Museum”

Elche, Alicante, Comunidad Valenciana.
Special mention / Diploma in the category Education, training and awareness-raising / Education, training and skills in the year 2009.

Dating of the building: 1968 - 2009.

Applicant: Fernando García Fontanet.

Reason for the award :

For its contribution to the knowledge and conservation of Elche's ethnological heritage, through an exemplary pedagogical programme, which starts from a model rural school and achieves the creation of an authentic, great museum, in which the future and daily life - both urban and rural - of the city of Elche is presented.

  • © Museo Escolar de Pusol
  • © Museo Escolar de Pusol

UNESCO listed The Centre for Traditional Culture – School Museum of Pusol in 2009 in the Register of Good Safeguarding Practices of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The pedagogical project of the Traditional Culture Centre – School Museum of Pusol has been developed since 1968 in the public school of the rural district of Pusol, in Campo de Elche. It is an educational project of environmental integration, oriented to significant learning and education in values. Its primary pedagogical tool is culture based on natural heritage. The project encourages the autonomy, responsibility, and teamwork of schoolchildren in safeguarding actions (fieldwork, inventory, museography, conservation, dissemination, and awareness). Schoolchildren learn in direct contact with the environment and the elders who guard the traditions, with the support of teachers and external collaborators.

The project has generated an extraordinary ethnographic and environmental fund, the School Museum, which has thousands of objects and oral records from the Campo and the city of Elche. Its success rests on the openness and participatory character of its community. The working method that has been used to date in this project involves children in research and heritage preservation. On the one hand, the schoolchildren document on various media (audio, photo, video, text, drawing, etc.) witness the intangible heritage of their environment, either the traditional works derived from the palm tree or the local gastronomic cookery book. On the other hand, they carry out museum work with the significant funds donated by the community, cataloging, listing, and handling their storage and exhibition.

Others awards in Comunidad Valenciana: