The National Trust’s Buscot and Coleshill Estates have recently been collaborating with Petra National Trust in Jordan on a new climate and heritage workshop programme aimed at young people. As part of the International National Trust Organisation’s Withstanding Change project, Buscot and Coleshill’s excellent children and young people team have connecting with their Jordanian counterparts, who are leaders in the field of heritage education and outreach. Together, the two teams have been learning about engaging young people and inspiring them to safeguard heritage sites from threats including climate change.

Over the past few months, the two teams in Jordan and the United Kingdom have been meeting online to discuss the impacts of climate change on historic buildings – including Petra National Trust’s Bayt al-Jaghbeer in As-Salt, designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Bayt al-Jaghbeer is an extensive house, one of the oldest in As-Salt, whose vaulted lower levels were originally used for storage, with the higher levels a private residence. Working with the Al-Khader cultural organisation, Petra National Trust are restoring the house to make it more resilient to the extremes that come with climate change (much hotter, drier periods combined with prolonged periods of heavy rainfall), and to showcase the local heritage craft skills for which the city is renowned.

Buscot and Coleshill happens to be home to the National Trust’s Heritage and Rural Skills centre, and encouraging and celebrating the craft skills that are essential to the maintenance of historic buildings has been a key point of exchange between the two twinned sites. But education has been the main topic of conversation: as part of the Withstanding Change project, Petra National Trust’s Mirna Musharbash and Huda Amarin have developed a brand-new programme, ‘Climate Heritage Youth Leaders’, aimed at sixteen to eighteen-year-olds. Katy Lamb, Partnerships and Programme Manager at Buscot and Coleshill, said:

‘Petra National Trust have created a unique and successful 15-week programme for young people, and we’ve been able to learn from the success of this. The new programme we’ll be delivering focuses on allowing young people with SEN to see a future career path that will help to save our planet.

‘In being able to communicate with our Jordanian counterparts, we have been able to strengthen our power and enthusiasm, as individual teams and together, to work towards our united goals in protecting our heritage and teaching sustainable practises for the future.’

Katy is delivering the newly developed workshop programme with a local SEN school in early 2025, and will then be looking to offer further workshops for mainstream schools in the summer.

In December 2024, Katy was able to travel to the Facing Change conference in Jordan, bringing together delegates from across the INTO network and the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund. She was able to see Bayt al-Jaghbeer in the flesh, and was also able to present her work alongside that of Mirna and Huda, as part of a panel on youth engagement.

Mirna commented on the panel as follows: ‘Our twinning partnership contributed to a broader global conversation on climate change, heritage conservation, and youth engagement. By interacting with experts from the UK and Uganda, we gained valuable insights and learned about diverse perspectives and strategies.’

Huda added that this type of twinning partnership between PNT and the National Trust ‘offers a valuable platform for collaboration, learning, and mutual growth. By sharing expertise, best practices, and innovative solutions, we can enhance our capacity. It could open doors to new opportunities, such as future collaborations, projects, or funding initiatives. Moreover, the impact of this partnership extends to local communities, where shared objectives and coordinated efforts can lead to positive changes and developments.’

Future plans for the partnership include an online exchange between youth groups in Jordan and the UK, and PNT have said they are keen to learn more about Coleshill and Buscot’s approach to planning nature-based workshop activities, for both SEN and mainstream schools. The partnership has lots of plans for the future; do follow @intoheritage for updates!

Withstanding Change is an International National Trusts Organisation project, and is funded by the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund in partnership with DCMS.