The Focus of the Birthing Stories Project: a Blog by Sally Boyle

As the weeks fly by it feels as if the framework of the ‘Birthing Stories’ project is taking shape. To secure funding we first must garner interest, thus I have been seeking out contacts to the various communities that make up Worcester. What has become evident through all this is that we must not lose sight of what this project is about - uplifting women. It’s about them telling their stories as women first and foremost. During my research, I found myself so fascinated by all the different traditions, practices, ceremonies and teachings surrounding birth, that I somewhat lost sight of this. Yes, a mother may be influenced by the other aspects of her life, but what we want to do here is unite their shared experiences as women. I have kept all the research I have gathered over the weeks, but I now realise it’s important for these mothers to share what they want to share. Maybe others parts of their identity influenced their childbirth, maybe it didn’t. Though now, if they choose to talk about these various ceremonies or teachings, I have some background knowledge, despite there being so much more I could learn from their stories. This is why it’s so important to share them through the project - so we can all learn not just about different walks of life but most importantly, what women go through during childbirth.

I’ve drafted emails to send out to various groups with this in mind, which can be hopefully sent out in the next week or so. Additionally, we’re planning to create a web page describing what we want to achieve, to further help them decide on whether they’d be interested in contributing.

I began this project knowing I wanted to engage with communities, and this is why I felt working with the George Marshall Medical Museum would be an amazing route for me to take. However, along the way I’ve been able to learn even more about why this is so important. My blog post on community engagement is linked below, and demonstrates why projects such as these can be a huge asset to the region they’re based in.

Why we need Community Engagement: Blog by Sally Boyle

Engaging with your community is important for any organisation, and it is no different for museums. Telling history in an engaging and informative way is their principal objective, so to exclude the stories and narratives that come directly from the people who visit seems counterproductive. This is why so many museums, including the medical museums are working on constantly improving their community engagement. It is simply not enough to create collections and exhibitions that heritage staff themselves feel is representative, the whole process must involve those it describes, and further beyond this. If you want to accurately represent the history of the region, the best way to do it is to ask the communities of those living there.

It is of great importance to not stick to only one narrative, and instead diversify your exhibitions and projects through listening to, respecting and sharing power with the communities you work with. Involvement in the reviewing, documenting, updating, interpreting, designing and displaying of exhibitions can be incredible ways to involve the community with the museum, making them feel part of what’s displayed. This is key to these establishments to not only ensure they’re representative, but also to garner support locally. If you were to feel as though these exhibitions do not represent you, your family, your way of life, your religion and community, you’re unlikely to engage. Yet when we involve people, artefacts and stories of all vibrant individuals of Worcester, people are more likely to want to visit, and support the medical museums when it’s needed.

This has been shown by other museums across the UK, however Hackney Museum is a particularly good example of how community engagement can help a museum thrive. Their ‘Platform’ space located near the entrance displays four exhibits from local community groups each year, with contributions from schools, rehabilitation centres, young offenders and more.

Moreover, with help from the ‘Our Museum’ initiative, different groups were able to bid to have their projects displayed in the ‘Side by Side: Living in Cazenove’ exhibition. The collection was designed to represent the area’s various flourishing communities and it was ensured they had a large role to play in the process of displaying their work. The exhibition encouraged a large audience of 6,000 to visit, which included those who had never been to the museum before, demonstrating how community engagement can help a museum increase their popularity.

With the ‘Birthing Stories’ project that we are hoping to secure funding for, we aim to engage the community in a similar way. Asking the women who make up Worcester to share with us their personal experiences can help those who may actually visit the museum feel as if they’re not just an audience, but part of the organisation. This is similar to the ‘Hackney@50’ project where people were asked what Hackney meant to them and to share their potentially sensitive stories. The best way for any museum to represent the history of those who make up the region, is to ask those who created this history themselves.

With this being said, the progress that can still be made does not discredit past engagements the medical museums have had with local communities. A great example of how working with local organisations can create powerful connections, is the project with EVERYBODY DANCE dance company. As an organisation that brings together disabled and non-disabled people through an inclusive medium of dance, they were able to create ‘Progress’, involving film and workshop projects. The museum was able to engage with schools and disabled artists, for mutual benefit and education for all parties involved. Watch the short film they created below!

Additionally, the museums were able to engage with local schools through the Worcestershire World War One Hundred project, one of the largest programmes commemorating the First World War across England. Over three months, they worked with Hanley Swan Primary School to teach them of life on the home front and of the VAD detachment previously housed at what is now The Boynes Care Centre, culminating in the students being tasked to recreate an autograph book similar to those of WW1. Furthermore, the programmes got High School students of Tudor Grange Academy involved too, as they trialled a prototype game designed for Key Stage 3 mathematics students. Based off a First World War casualty clearing station, the game utilised museum collections and is still available for free download now.

Community engagement is key for any museum, and there is always room to build upon and expand upon connections already made. Through future projects, the medical museums will strive to reach out to groups not commonly depicted in their past collections, to allow the organisation to accurately reflect the people it represents.

Update on George Marshall Medical Museum

Please watch the following short film to find out why we’re not opening the George Marshall Medical Museum just yet.

The top priority of the George Marshall Medical Museum is to keep volunteers, visitors and staff safe. If you have visited us before, you'll know that the mu...

The top priority of the George Marshall Medical Museum is to keep volunteers, visitors and staff safe. If you have visited us before, you’ll know that the museum is very long and narrow with very few passing places. There is a large bend in the middle, which can make it hard to see other people in the space.

We don’t feel we can provide a safe space which allows for the advised 2m between groups or individuals, which means we will remain closed. Right now, there is work happening behind the scenes, and we will be utilising the museum space to provide safe spaces for staff and volunteers to work.

If you’re a researcher, who would like to see an archive or book in the collection, we will soon be able to welcome you to the museum for that purpose.

For news and updates, follow us on social media. Twitter and Instagram @GMMedicalMuseum, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheMedicalMuseum and our website: www.medicalmuseum.org.uk.

Thank you for your patience.

Why I chose George Marshall Medical Museum: a blog by Sally Boyle

Scanning through all the placements available to me, the opportunity to work with this organisation stood out. As is evident by my degree choice, learning about history is a huge interest of mine. It’s what led us to the present day, it’s what has influenced society around us, and even on a personal level has influenced our families generation by generation. Social history is where the largest part of my interest lies, so learning of birthing stories from the women of Worcester seemed fascinating to me. To learn of the bigger picture, we must look at the individual stories, each as important as one another. Moreover, female history often seems to be sidestepped in favour of male history, when in reality women have shown as much courage and strength as men throughout history.

Sales, marketing, and the like isn’t something I could necessarily see myself in. Though circumstances have changed due to covid-19, sitting behind a desk with no human interaction didn’t really seem greatly appealing to me. I’d much rather reach out to others, be social, make connections with other groups and see how we can all work collaboratively to reach common goals. Additionally, I feel it’s important to make efforts to improve communities, and I’m hoping to contribute towards this if funding for this project goes ahead.

Through this project, I hope to help connect the museum to groups from in and around Worcester. This includes from medical fields, pregnancy groups, mum and baby groups, religious groups and diverse ethnic communities. Not only do I want to share their stories to connect women to one another and highlight their solidarity, but also celebrate their differences and what makes each person and their own child birth story unique. I hope that hearing of other mothers difficulties but most importantly joys will empower women to feel in control of their own birth. Hearing of others could be reassuring, help women make their own choices instead of just listening to medical advice and hopefully inspire social charge. This is why I am working on trying to drum up interest for the project. Having created a list of organisations I could contact, I will soon be working on getting in touch with them to ask if they feel this project could benefit the women in their communities. From this, we will be able to see if the project can go ahead.

Hope to keep you all updated on what happens next!