A mini ITP reunion in Cairo!

Hello everyone, I am Nevine Nizar from the 2012 ITP.

A few weeks ago, me and other Egyptian alumni of the ITP had a wonderful evening with Neal Spencer and Claire Messenger during their visit to Cairo to interview Egyptian candidates for this year’s International Training Programme.

It was a great opportunity to reunite with Neal and Claire as well as to see friends and colleagues from the Ministry of Antiquities. We are all Egyptian ITP participants but from different years – some of us even met for the first time during this evening! It was such a unique experience to gather together and catch up with the progress of the ITP as well as exchange our experiences. We shared our work projects with each other and discussed the challenges and issues of curating in Egyptian museums, and how we could collaborate as ITP alumni of Cairo to improve the situation.

“It was so lovely sitting with ITP staff and colleagues and we had such a wonderful chat. I shared updates of my work at the Islamic Art Museum which will be opening next month after a long-term closure due to the blast in January 2014.  The museum has been developed to meet the highest international standards. How exciting to mention that I was able to apply many ideas I captured from the ITP. I feel so proud of my museum after the refurbishment and the new displays, especially that I partook effectively in this process – the ITP really changed my life” Mohamed Ahmed Abdel Salam, ITP 2013

“I was really happy to see Claire and Neal and inform them of how the ITP increased my productivity at work and promoted my skills to achieve higher responsibility for the new Archive Section at the Egyptian Museum of Tahrir. It was so lovely to meet-up all together”. Asmaa Hassan El Rabat, ITP 2014 

It was an exciting reunion; we enjoyed it a lot and were reconnected. Many thanks to Neal and Claire, we hope to meet you again next year and create new connections!

Best Regards,

Nevine

All images author’s own.