Sawa Museum Studies Program

SAWA Museum Studies Program is the first non-discriminatory and diversity-oriented educational program for museum enthusiasts residing in the MENA Region and in Germany. The SAWA cooperation between the Sharjah Museum Authority, the University of Applied Sciences Berlin/HTW and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin was founded in 2014. Since 2021 the project is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office and the Sharjah Museum Authority with the kind support of the Goethe-Institut. In Arabic SAWA means together. This name was chosen to shed light on the philosophy and structure of this Museum Studies Program: Facilitators and participants come in equal parts from Arabic-speaking countries and Germany Modules are led by a team of two museum experts from the UAE and from Europe. Each year a new group is chosen to consist of equal parts of people passionate about museums residing in the UAE, the MENA region and Germany who are at the beginning of their careers. With a critical view of the museum definition the curriculum is jointly and continuously developed further by all facilitators in order to meet the needs of a diverse group of participants, operating in different fields of the museum. Learn more about the SAWA experience here: