Museum Bus: Project in Romania’s Buzău county brings museum to pupils in rural areas

The Museum Bus, an educational project of Buzău County Museum, has reached 12,000 direct beneficiaries since its launch in 2019, Daniel Costache, the museum’s director, told Agerpres.

As part of the project, a minibus furbished with museum displays and materials travels in the county to reach students in rural areas.

The minibus, which has undertaken 83 trips in the county so far, travels with museum staff, who set up the exhibitions at the designated points. Schools and administrative units in Buzău County can contact the museum and request a visit of the mobile museum free of charge.

The exhibits, photos, and films showcased by the mobile museum capture elements of the County Museum’s Archeology, History, and Art departments. They also illustrate special collections, such as one dedicated to globe-trotter Dumitru Dan or the museum’s phone collection. Visitors can also learn about the archeological digs in Buzău county and what the work of archeologists entails.

Educational institutions from Prahova, Brăila, Sibiu counties and Bucharest have joined the project since its launch, Costache explained.

Some 97% of students in rural areas have never visited a museum, according to data collected by the Buzău County Museum in the four years since the launch of the Museum Bus.

“We have the opportunity of offering a museum experience to certain communities where children have had no contact with a museum. From the beneficiaries in Buzău rural areas, some 3% of the children have visited a museum. The rest, never. The Museum Bus was a unique opportunity to get acquainted with a museum,” Costache told Agerpres.

The museum showcases replicas of items in the institution’s collections and is organized as a smaller-size museum while offering a complex experience, he explained.

(Photo: Muzeul Județean Buzău Facebook Page)