The Damien Museum operates on the basis of a contemporary and stimulating vision of the figure of Damien, based on expert and recent scientific research from Belgium and abroad. This contemporary vision presents the figure of Damien as an inspired builder of bridges between cultures and religions and as a committed human rights activist avant la lettre, without neglecting the learning and growth process that Damien went through as a person and that made him who he was and what he did. In the eyes of Hawaiians, he embodied numerous important Hawaiian values such as love and compassion (aloha), togetherness and belonging (ohana), consideration and care for all (malama pono).
Father Damien (1840-1889) may have lived two centuries ago, yet his message and values of meaning, connection, respect, dialogue, solidarity and commitment across borders remain burningly topical. He let himself be touched by the story of people on the fringes of society. He recognised their dignity. He shared his life with them. He had an eye for people in all their diversity (material-physical, mental, spiritual) and actively campaigned for their rights. Even today, numerous factors and circumstances (poverty, illness, loneliness, unemployment,...) leave people sidelined and excluded in our society. Even today, Damien, elected Greatest Belgian in 2005 and canonised in 2009, and his heritage and legacy know how to inspire and commit us to actively propagate his values and give them shape in our contemporary society and to actively and peacefully fight against injustice and exclusion and work towards a just and humane society.
This vision of Damien and how he manages to inspire people and organisations like the Damien Museum today is anchored in an ‘integral vision’ of heritage. Care for Damian's heritage and legacy automatically and directly translates into care for Damian's current values and into care for people. This 3-fold care forms the guiding 3-unit for the Damien Museum and its heritage operation. Key concepts here are inclusion, participation, accessibility, hospitality, sustainability and commitment.
The Damien Museum is more than just a storehouse of the past. Like so many other museums and heritage institutions, the Damien Museum is a person-forming and community-forming house of learning, a place of information, inspiration, reflection, dialogue, participation and engagement.