In all the four regions of Uganda that you may visit, you will be pleasantly surprised to find a community museum. Community museums are initiatives by individuals, families or groups who have collected artifacts, oral history, and other elements of the local culture. The museums have made an effort to link past and future through their collections, which are accessible to schools, researchers, local residents and foreign tourists. Community museums play an important role in preserving and presenting the diversity of Uganda’s cultural heritage and provide spaces for appreciating different cultures; they are cultural repositories; some have well documented literature on culture and other anthropological aspects. Community museums in Uganda represent a strong desire by individuals, families and communities to preserve and promote their cultures.
However, these museums are still plagues with different problems hence hampering their contribution to the preservation and documentation of our heritage; and above all contribute to cultural tourism. Particularly, community museums are faced with the following challenges: Lack of management skills for the collection, including focus, presentation, storage, labelling and the challenge of physically preserving artefacts (rodents, insects, mould, as well as theft). There is limited recording, with reliance on the fragmentary memories of elderly people
Limited documentation, publicity and marketing skills and the lack of coordination and networking among museums