Alliance of Museums established at inaugural AGM

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Al­liance of Mu­se­ums (TTAM) was for­mal­ly es­tab­lished on Tues­day at its First An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing in Port of Spain.

The meet­ing marked the elec­tion of the Al­liance’s in­au­gur­al Board of Di­rec­tors.

Elect­ed Pres­i­dent is Nimah Muwak­il-Za­kuri. Kara Roops­ingh was elect­ed Vice Pres­i­dent. Jaime Ba­goo was elect­ed Sec­re­tary to the Board. Juli­et Abrahim was elect­ed Trea­sur­er. Pe­ter Cor­bie was elect­ed Di­rec­tor of Ad­vo­ca­cy and Sec­tor De­vel­op­ment.

TTAM was formed in re­sponse to chal­lenges fac­ing mu­se­ums in Trinidad and To­ba­go, in­clud­ing re­source con­straints, ca­pac­i­ty gaps and dig­i­tal de­mands. The Al­liance stat­ed that it aims to ad­vance co­or­di­na­tion, ad­vo­ca­cy and sec­tor de­vel­op­ment.

Pres­i­dent Nimah Muwak­il-Za­kuri said the Al­liance rep­re­sents a com­mit­ment to strength­en­ing the mu­se­um sec­tor and safe­guard­ing her­itage in­sti­tu­tions. She said the or­gan­i­sa­tion will fo­cus on part­ner­ships and pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards.

Vice Pres­i­dent Kara Roops­ingh said TTAM will pro­vide a plat­form for di­a­logue, knowl­edge-shar­ing and joint ac­tion across in­sti­tu­tions.

The Al­liance stat­ed that its pri­or­i­ties in­clude ad­vo­cat­ing for na­tion­al poli­cies and fund­ing frame­works for mu­se­ums; pro­mot­ing pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment and train­ing; en­cour­ag­ing in­clu­sive pro­gram­ming; and strength­en­ing gov­er­nance and fi­nan­cial sus­tain­abil­i­ty among mem­ber in­sti­tu­tions.

Sec­re­tary Jaime Ba­goo and Trea­sur­er Juli­et Abrahim stat­ed that the Board will op­er­ate in ac­cor­dance with statu­to­ry re­quire­ments and mu­se­um stan­dards.

TTAM said it will en­gage stake­hold­ers in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors, ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions and civ­il so­ci­ety.

The Al­liance in­vit­ed mu­se­ums, her­itage or­gan­i­sa­tions, cul­tur­al pro­fes­sion­als, cor­po­rate part­ners and pol­i­cy­mak­ers to par­tic­i­pate in its work.