IAA project type: Networking grant

Duration of project: April - September 2023

Partner organisation: Social Action for Health (SAfH)

MOLA staff leading IAA grant: Dr Kate Faccia

Project aims

  1. Develop a working partnership with SAfH
  2. Create networks with their diverse communities
  3. Learn how MOLA can use its resources to create engaging wellbeing-led programmes for diverse and traditionally underserved communities.

This work will foster future collaboration with SAfH in designing archaeologically-inspired, wellbeing-led interventions in diverse communities.

Audiences

  • The SAfH community - Community members are some of the most negatively impacted by health inequality in the UK. They have been referred to SAfH due to chronic health conditions.
  • SAfH - SAfH are a local health charity serving the Tower Hamlets. We will explore new ways to foster wellbeing outcomes for their communities.
  • MOLA - The project will expand MOLA's impact to new audiences and contribute to delivering and evidencing archaeology's potential to support wellbeing and social value initiatives and outcomes
  • Archaeological sector - If successful, these consultations will contribute to the growing body of work that is exploring the potential for archaeologically-inspired projects to contribute to individual and community wellbeing, particularly in underserved communities.

Project plan

Developer-led archaeology is conducted behind the hoarding of construction sites, and in the processing facilities and offices of commercial companies.  Any public outreach often reaches a particular demographic – older, white, higher educational attainment – whereas developer-led archaeology disproportionately affects lower income and minoritized communities.

Therefore, it is incumbent upon our profession to develop programmes that transform our work into social value, generating positive legacies for communities traditionally underserved by archaeology.

This project begins exploring the impact that archaeologically-inspired engagement can make in diverse communities experiencing multiple indicators of deprivation. Social Action for Health (SAfH) is a health-based charity in Tower Hamlets serving diverse communities experiencing some of the highest levels of health inequality in the UK.

Together we will:

  1. identify three SAfH communities for participation
  2. co-create and co-deliver consultations
  3. lay the groundwork for future archaeologically-inspired and wellbeing-led work with SAfH and their network of communities.

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