Our front of house team’s warmth, care and curiosity made the Migration Museum in Lewisham a place where people came back to again and again — sometimes just for a chat or a quiet moment on the community sofas, at other times to spend an hour or more exploring our exhibitions.
Whether supporting emotional conversations, offering sensory tools for neurodivergent visitors, or simply greeting everyone who walks through our doors with a smile, our team makes the Migration Museum a space where everyone can feel they belong.
Family pictured at the Migration Museum in 2024 (Photo: Elzbieta Piekacz)
This national award celebrates the very best in visitor experience, and we are honoured to be recognised for creating one of the most welcoming, inclusive, and engaging museum environments in the UK.
From teens dropping in after school, to community elders, long-time supporters, parents with toddlers, first-time museum-goers, and even those who may be unsure about their links to migration, we aim to make everyone who visits the Migration Museum feel welcome. That belief is at the heart of everything we do — and it’s wonderful to have it acknowledged on this scale.
A Front of House Welcome at the Migration Museum (Photo: Elzbieta Piekacz)
We were shortlisted in a prestigious field alongside Derby Museums Trust Visitor Experience Team | Museum of Making, Nothe Fort operated by Weymouth Civic Society Wanting to make a difference: Visitor Experience at Nothe Fort, Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust The Historic Dockyard Chatham and Young V&A Young V&A Front of House Team. Congratulations to all of our colleagues who were shortlisted in this category.
The award, decided by a panel of independent judges with extensive experience across the museums and heritage sector, was announced at a glittering ceremony at the Hilton Park Lane, London, known as the ‘Oscars of the Museum World’, on Thursday 15 May.
Frances Ewings and Amanda Swift receiving the Visitor Welcome Award at the Museums + Heritage Awards 2025 (Photo: Hayley Bray)
Frances Ewings, Front of House Gallery Supervisor, said: “Thank you to the judges and a huge thank you to our Migration Museum visitors that support us, whether you’ve visited us once or are our regular faces. We’re thrilled to have our front of house work recognised through this award”
“At the Migration Museum, we pride ourselves on being welcoming to everyone – and as we have until recently been located in a shopping centre in Lewisham, south-east London, this really does mean everyone! From curious shoppers to those who have travelled across the country to see our exhibitions, we strive to ensure our work is accessible to all.”
“As we look ahead to our move to a permanent home in the City of London, opening in 2028, we plan to take what we’ve built in Lewisham with us and show that welcoming and supporting visitors is a crucial part of their experience and what people take away from the museum.”
“We hope to be an example of how the Front of House work is as vital as exhibitions, learning and programming in order for visitors to truly experience a museum’s values.”
To all of you who have visited, shared your story, brought friends or family, left kind comments in our welcome book, or recommended us to a friend — thank you. This award is for you, too.
Volunteer Amanda Swift leading a Stories in Focus mini-tour (Photo: Elzbieta Piekacz)
The Migration Museum is delighted to announce that the Portal Trust has become an inaugural donor of its new permanent home in the City of London.
The Portal Trust will provide £500,000 in funding over the next three years to help the Migration Museum establish Britain’s first permanent museum dedicated to exploring how migration has shaped who we are – as individuals, communities and nations.
The funding will support the salaries, capital and project costs of delivering the Migration Museum’s award-winning learning programme in its new permanent home from a dedicated learning suite to be used for educational activities including interactive workshops, creative activities, and meaningful discussions. The Migration Museum will name one of the the classrooms within the learning suite ‘The Portal Trust Education Room’ for a period of 20 years.
This funding will be instrumental in ensuring that more schools and families can visit the museum and benefit from our immersive, hands-on, story-led learning experiences.
The Portal Trust is an educational grant-making charity that enables young people in London, particularly those from disadvantaged or low-income backgrounds, to access educational opportunities. It has been supporting school groups to visit the Migration Museum since 2023 through funding for its Transforming Migration Education Programme, which works with teachers and students at Key Stage 3 and GCSE level.
The Portal Trust is based across the road from the site of the Migration Museum’s new permanent home, at the intersection of the City and the East End, areas with rich, multi-layered migration histories stretching back many centuries, and just minutes away from well-known landmarks including the Tower of London, Tower Bridge and the Bank of England.
When it reopens at its permanent home in 2028, the Migration Museum will be the UK’s first permanent museum dedicated to migration, welcoming 140,000 visitors a year to its exhibitions, events, learning and community programmes, including 20,000 learners.
Announcing the agreement, Richard Foley, Chief Executive of the Portal Trust, said:
“We’re excited to be on this journey with the Migration Museum until its opening in 2028 and beyond. Our support for the Migration Museum will place the study of migration where it belongs – at the heart of Britain’s history. It will also improve accessibility, ensuring more schools and families can visit the museum and benefit from the immersive, hands-on learning experiences that make visiting a museum so special.
“We’re especially excited to support the Portal Trust Education Room within the museum. By engaging with real-life migration stories, students will deepen their understanding of the world around them. The Education Room will be a powerful tool for educators, and a resource that brings these important conversations to life.
In today’s world, where discussions about migration can be divisive, the museum offers a much-needed space for reflection and understanding. It’s a place where young people can engage with complex issues in a safe and supportive environment, equipping them with the tools to become more inclusive and thoughtful citizens. The museum is not just about learning the past, it’s about shaping the future.”
Sophie Henderson, CEO of the Migration Museum, said:
“We are delighted to welcome the Portal Trust as an inaugural donor of our permanent home. Their support will be instrumental in growing our award-winning learning programme, which equips learners with the skills and confidence to better understand and contextualise who they are and how they fit into and are a part of Britain’s long history of migration.
The Portal Trust’s generous support will enable us to engage tens of thousands of young people a year on migration and intersecting themes from our dedicated education suite at our new permanent home in the City of London.
Now more than ever, we need an inspiring space for learners from across London, Britain and beyond to come together to explore, discuss and reflect on key questions around migration, identity and belonging – and the Portal Trust’s support will enable us to deliver this.”
This short video brings to life the Migration Museum’s award-winning learning programme and its impact on learners and teachers.
The Migration Museum stands in solidarity with people and communities under threat from recent violent attacks across the UK.
As an organisation that explores how the movement of people to and from the UK across the ages has shaped who we are as individuals, communities, and as nations, we are deeply committed to standing up against division and hatred.
Violence directed towards people seeking sanctuary, people of colour, Muslims and others, shows that there is so much work to be done to contribute to a society that feels more connected rather than more divided. We aim to be part of this change.
Hope is powerful, we are stronger together.
In solidarity, Migration Museum team
Update:
A week on from the violence directed towards people seeking sanctuary, people of colour, Muslims and others, we continue to stand in solidarity with the victims and with everyone who has been traumatised and affected.
As we continue to process and start to think about how to rebuild and heal, we wanted to share the thoughts of two of our Trustees – historian, author, and broadcaster Professor David Olusoga, and author Robert Winder – assessing some of the personal and collective impacts, causes and historical precedents.
Оur award-winning learning team runs in-person and online workshops and creates resources to facilitate informed conversations around migration among primary and secondary school children (Year 7 and up). It also trains teachers in how to approach teaching about migration and how to integrate it into various curriculum subjects, and promotes individual migration stories that emphasise lived experience.
Since 2020, we have engaged around 17,500 students and 1,300 teachers through our learning programme. 84% of students said they found the workshops highly educational, 76% of students found their visit engaging and 81% said that they had a better understanding of migration after participating in museum activities. Feedback also shows that 100% of teachers were satisfied with the content and relevance of the workshops.
We have a partnership with the Teach First Summer Project to engage in co-production of learning materials and to help in its understanding of the support needed by teachers. We also share best practice through its Migration Network, which includes hundreds of people from institutions within museums, galleries, and the charity and education sectors.
Pelham Primary School visit to the Migration Museum (Photo: Pelham Primary School) and Migration Museum stall at Windrush75 Tilbury Celebrations (Photo: Migration Museum)
Judges praised the Migration Musuem’s Learning Programme for its innovative approach to teaching migration. The training of teachers ensures sustainability, allowing future students to engage with the topic. Service-user involvement is emphasised through storytelling, integrating people with lived experiences into the project.
Charity Awards judge Karin Woodley, chief executive of Cambridge House, said the Migration Museum’s learning programme was innovative in approaching the subject of migration in terms of the population and development of the UK as a whole, rather than focusing on individual migrant communities. It was a “difficult and potentially contentious area of work with excellent knowledge-sharing and outcomes,” she said.
“The other thing that’s unusual, and very hard to do in schools, is the cross-curriculum approach – training teachers to understand migrant history across all areas of the curriculum.”
Judge André Clarke, director of charity development at Lloyds Bank Foundation, added that the Migration Museum’s use of storytelling is both simple and powerful, and highlighted the importance of the project “in the context of the current toxic and inflammatory conversation about migration”.
Liberty Melly, Head of Learning at the Migration Museum, said: “Thank you! We’re so proud of everything we’ve achieved. Young people continue to inspire us, making us believe in a better future, where tolerance, understanding and empathy are core. Engaging young people in important conversations and taking the stigma and polarisation out of the topic of migration which is so often used to divide us. Migration goes to the heart of who we are as individuals, communities, and as nations.”
Learning Team at The Charity Awards 2024 (Photos: Migration Museum)
A special thank you goes to our trustees and education committee for their ongoing support and commitment. We are also grateful to our amazing volunteers and placement students for their help with facilitating and delivering sessions. As well as our Teach First summer placements, exam board, and teacher training partners for their invaluable contributions.This achievement is a testament to the hard work and collaboration of everyone involved. We appreciate your ongoing support!
If you’d like to find out more about our learning programmes, get in touch with our Head of Learning, Liberty liberty@migrationmuseum.org
Visit our donate page If you’d like to support our work.
