Museum faces funding cliff

Fiji's national museum is facing a critical funding shortfall that threatens to halt a vital heritage preservation initiative. The Fiji Museum requires an additional $300,000 to sustain its ambitious digitization program through 2028 and retain essential interns.

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Now, by the end of September, the US Ambassadors Fund will run out. It will have been completely used up, and we will have 40% of the collections digitised by then. So we are now desperately trying to find extra funding to continue on the digitisation project until December 2028.

The project, launched in 2021 with support from the United States Ambassadors Fund, aims to create digital records of the museum's extensive collection. This initiative seeks to make Fiji's historical archives more accessible for future generations. However, progress has been hampered by challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic and previous funding interruptions.

Armando Lowe, the museum's Chief Executive, stated that the current funding from the U.S. Ambassadors Fund will be fully depleted by the end of September. At that point, approximately 40% of the museum's collections will have been digitized. "We are now desperately trying to find extra funding to continue on the digitization project until December 2028," Lowe said.

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Which is, if we can keep the interns on, means that 100% of the collections will be digitised by December 2028, but we need to find another, between September this year, 2026, and December 2028, we need to find another $300,000 to keep the interns on, to keep the momentum in terms of digitisation.

Securing the necessary funds would enable the museum to complete the digitization of its entire collection by the end of 2028. This includes keeping interns employed to maintain momentum. Without this support, the museum warns that progress could significantly slow, leaving thousands of valuable historical records unpreserved and inaccessible.

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We are also planning to look at some of those digitisation projects for some of the important records that we have. Currently, we are working together with Multi-Ethnic Affairs. There’s a project that’s currently going on.