Abri House of Heritage opened in early 2019 as a community heritage centre for the town of Abri and surrounding area, located in the Amara West area of North Sudan. The centre is located in a refurbished 1940s club building in Abri’s town, now housing items of the local community’s heritage, dating back to Bronze Age times, a display of changing content and a performance and activity space.

The British Museum had been carrying out archaeological activity in the area over several years, yet the locality had no permanent home for its own history. The nearest museums or libraries are over 200km away, and these mostly feature Khartoum or other national heritage. To create a sustainable legacy for the area, the British Museum team facilitated the development of a community developed and run heritage centre. Local people want Abri’s Heritage Centre to be a place to celebrate and keep alive their Nubian living heritage, having lived with generations of displacement, cultural erasure and dwindling Nubian language speakers.

The centre’s collaboration with Sudan Memory in March 2019 led to the provision of training and equipment, to establish a hub for scanning and documenting photographs and other content from local family collections. This was Sudan Memory’s first recording hub to be established outside of Khartoum, also the first recording activity to cater specifically to the local community.