Vabamu

Tallinn, Estonia

Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom, with its branch KGB Prison Cells, is the largest active non-profit museum in Estonia. The museum is managed by the Kistler-Ritso Estonian Foundation. It is a place that recounts the story of the Estonian people from occupation to independence and inspires people to maintain and stand up for their freedom. Vabamu’s mission is to educate, engage, and encourage Estonian people and visitors to reflect on recent history, to feel the fragile nature of freedom, and stand up for liberty and justice.

NoVa, or Noorte Vabamu, is the branch of Vabamu’s educational activities, which brings together both value-based museum lessons that support the curriculum, as well as a self-study environment which offers courses on social subjects as well as Study Bites. The goal of NoVa is to encourage young people to think along social lines and be curious, to learn independently at a time and pace that suits them, and to broaden their horizons through museum lessons, events and discussions, as well as to actively create content themselves. The main target group of NoVa activities are young people aged 12–19, and they are the ones who attend the museum classes and discussions the most. The topics from the museum classes, educational materials and discussions that interest youngsters most are human rights, the impact of war on the individual, active citizenship and sustainability. Accessibility has been purposefully addressed in the museum since its reopening in 2018, with guided tours including both descriptive and sign language interpretation, and lessons that are adapted to the principles of immersion. The topic of virtual museum lessons, study materials and tours was raised at the beginning of the COVID crisis in 2020, prompting the museum to gradually develop services in both event formats and a self-learning environment.