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The Vasa Museum’s work with schools and beyond

Vasa: from failure to success story

The sinking of the Vasa ship in 1628 is an event that many people wanted to forget as soon as possible. Today, several hundred years later, the faulty ship is world famous and the museum attracts approximately 1.5 million annual visitors. The salvage of the Vasa is one of the most remarkable success stories in Swedish history. The ship was salvaged in 1961. And as of 2019, the museum has welcomed over 40 million visitors from all over the world to marvel at the ship and its history.

For the Vasa Museum, it is important that everyone has the opportunity to learn about Sweden’s cultural history. Therefore, as well as welcoming 1.5 million visitors, the museum works with several organisations that help people who have recently moved to Sweden to meet other Swedes and learn Swedish. These include SFI (Swedish for immigrants) language cafés, Kompis Sverige and Kompis Stockholm. Together, they offer tailor-made visits to the museum as well as audio guides in basic Swedish.

School activities where parents can join in too

When it comes to their educational services, the museum offers online learning resources to schools that can’t visit the museum. This means that all school children have the opportunity to go on a guided tour of the museum and meet a museum educator – wherever they live. Moreover, twice a year the museum runs a project with a school in one of Stockholm’s most deprived areas. In this project, the children’s parents can also get involved. The project concludes with the students taking their parents on a guided tour of the museum.

The Vasa Museum’s work promotes social, economic and political inclusion (10.2)

The museum’s work with schools creates an inclusive and safe learning environment (4.A)

Did you know…?

In 1920, two brothers from Oskarshamn in south-eastern Sweden applied for permission to look for ships to salvage. They wanted to look between Beckholmen and Tegelviken in Stockholm, which is where Vasa sank. The plan was to blow up the wrecks, in the hope that there would be materials that could be used in furniture manufacturing. Thank goodness the authorities said no!