Diverse Heritage

In response to the Black Lives Matter and anti-racism movements of 2020, we drafted a strategy that outlines how we will address colour-based racism. The Trust issues updates on the strategy every 6 months to be transparent about our progress.

As part of the Trust’s Strategy to Address Racism Against People of Colour, we collated resources related to anti-racism, the built environment and cultural heritage.

We collaborated with the National Trust in England to create a toolkit to help European Heritage Days coordinators co-create, deliver and evaluate inclusive events.

We co-hosted two community mapping events with Glasgow Disability Alliance’s BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) network. The sessions focused on sharing traditions, architecture, history and stories that reflected the group’s cultural connections to places around the globe.

We’re partnering with African and Caribbean Elders in Scotland, African and Caribbean Women’s Association, Bangladesh Association Glasgow and local community researcher Shani Whyte to promote and sell books about the varied and rich heritage of Scotland’s many communities.

To coincide with COP26 and as part of our Climate Crisis Response, Scottish Civic Trust hosted a “Heritage, Equity & the Climate Crisis” digital lecture series.

In collaboration with the British Deaf Association, the Refugee Survival Trust, the Sikorsky Trust and Glendale Women’s Café we translated Doors Open Days building tours into British Sign Language and languages such as Farsi, Polish and Urdu.

For Doors Open Days’ 30th anniversary, we worked with the Virtual Open Worlds computer-science team at University of St Andrews and disabled people’s organisations to create and collate virtual tours of some of Scotland’s best buildings.

We partnered with Our Story Scotland and LGBT Health and Wellbeing to host mapping and storytelling workshops in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Ayr to record and celebrate Scotland’s queer heritage.