Living Links Project

 

 

Living Links is a three year community archives project largely funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. This project is supported by Hampshire Archives and Local Studies and the Isle of Wight Record Office. Community Archives Officer Bryony Hatton explains: 

 

“Living Links aims to help community groups collect and embrace their local heritage. The project is now in its last few months as it comes to an end in March 2011. During the last three years Living Links has had contact with nearly two hundred groups across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. These include a wide variety of groups from the more traditional local history societies to yacht clubs and steam railways.

 

A large part of the project has involved encouraging groups unfamiliar with archives, such as youth groups, to become involved in their heritage through creative means; for example art, film, theatre and poetry. The project has also supported existing community heritage groups to develop their archives. For all groups the aim has been to inspire a better understanding of their community,and through this a greater sense of community identity and pride.

 

One of the central parts of the project is the Archive Ambassadors training which includes preservation techniques and cataloguing guidelines amongst other things. Through this training community group members can learn the skills required to build their own archive. There are now eighty-five Ambassadors across the two counties and a waiting list for the training.

 

The importance of preserving a community’s heritage as well as that of individuals and families should not be underestimated, and as a result of the work of Living Links we hope this message will continue to be promoted and supported across Hampshire”

 

Wherwell History Group was ‘founded’ about the same time as ‘Living Links’ started, and has benefited enormously from the help, advice and training received. The Group has 57 paid-up members and organises a program of monthly meetings, on the third Friday of each month at Wherwell Village Hall. Throughout 2010 they photographed as many village events, both large and small, as possible; for compilation into a permanent Scrapbook. Current projects include a ‘Bygones Calendar’, a ‘Then & Now’ album, profiles of village people and archival of village publications such as the Anthology and Parish Magazine. They are also building up a store of archive material, and have received nearly 40 separate contributions, mostly photographs, publications and a few oral interviews.

 

To view the film produced at the conclusion of the project ... click more >>