Eighty London primary school children are this week learning how to wattle and daub and prehistoric cooking skills with leaders and trainees of the East Sussex Archaeology and Museums Project (ESAMP). Once these skills have been honed the children will be working on site at a Soho churchyard, building the first Bronze Age house in London for 3,000 years.
The ESAMP project is totally unique and runs the most successful Government-supported training programme for the long-term unemployed of its kind in the southeast. It has a 73% success rate of getting jobs for trainees against a local average of 38% and a regional average of 40%.
The project is also the only one nationally to offer a mix of archaeology, environmental management and museums training. Trainees experience work in museums, on archaeological sites, in cemeteries and in conservation areas. They learn a broad range of skills ranging from making wattle and daub to web page designing.
Lead Member for Transport & Environment, Councillor Matthew Lock, commented: "The ESAMP project is totally unique in that it offers long-term unemployed a mix of archaeology, environmental management and museums training. Its merits areproved by the fact it almost doubles the regional average for trainees getting jobs after they've completed the training. This is its 20th year and the project leaders have a wealth of experience and excellent partnerships with the County Council, the Sussex Archaeological Society and the Brighton & Hove Museum Service.
"This latest project with the Soho school is very exciting as it will be the first Bronze Age house built in London for 3,000 years. Schools that have taken part in reconstructions have said that attainment levels have gone up amongst children after the project and one West Sussex school, which showed an improvement in literacy after the project in 2000, are returning to build a Saxon house later this year."
Reference:
04/167/TH
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