Abstract:

Education is included as one of the purposes that define the activities of museums, according to the International Council of Museums (UNESCO). Achieving this function, the Museo Etnolóxico de Ribadavia (North West of Spain) has placed its collection at the service of different kind of audiences, particularly of the population that can hardly access cultural activities offered by this type of centers. The project has been named Open Museum since its objective is to open this center’s work and collection to the whole of society.
The object of this paper is to promote the Open Museum project as a tool which combines education, cultural heritage, inclusion and visibility. It is definitely about a cultural and educational project for excluded groups which uses its cultural heritage as a tool for communication and evaluation of the participants´ perspectives. Our task will be to establish the elements which set up the ground to this project - from the Education department of Ethnologic Museum with the collaboration of the University of Vigo - just as to make a description of putting the plan into practice and the analysis of its social meaning.

Keywords:

Non formal education, handicaped people, Museums, Ethnology.