International Museum Day is celebrated every year on 18 May, coordinated by the International Council of Museums (ICOM). The event highlights a specific theme that changes every year and that is at the heart of the international museum community’s preoccupations.

The International Museum Day provides the opportunity for museum professionals to meet the public and alert them on the challenges that museums face. International Museum Day therefore serves as a platform to raise public awareness on the role museums play in the development of society today,

National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ) commemorates the International Museums Day, the highlight of which is a Heritage Education Quiz competition Final for primary schools from all provinces of Zimbabwe. The theme around which museums all over the world are commemorating this day for 2013 is: Museums (memory + creativity) = social change. Through this theme the International Council of Museums (ICOM) highlights the richness of our cultural heritage, which is conserved and presented in diverse forms in various museums around the world.

The theme enables museums to bring back to fold their mandate to preserve heritage put in their trust by different publics with the unavoidable need to transform their working relations with the audiences. The educational and ethical function of museums is to encourage cultural diversity amongst contemporary communities through exhibitions and workshops that they design. International Museums Day activities are intended to show that it is possible for museums to interpret the past in light of the present to shape a better future.