#makeheritagefun June 2015 – A report

Explore. Document. Share.

On Sunday, the 28th of June, GoUNESCO ran a distributed social media campaign at heritage sites in 19 cities around the world. We requested travelers, heritage enthusiasts, photographers, and the GoUNESCO student community to congregate at heritage sites in their cities and share photos and videos of their visit online – using the hashtag #makeheritagefun. By recording local heritage digitally, we hoped to draw attention to heritage and to start conversations around it – both offline and online. It was interesting to note, not just the diversity of sites that participants visited around the world, but also the manner in which some chose to engage with them.  The heritage sites visited included the 2nd century Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome, Italy, the 11th century Durham Cathedral in Durham, England, the 16th century Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi, the Gateway of India in Mumbai, the Osmania College in Hyderabad,  and the Victoria Memorial among others.

 

 

Participants in Italy chose to dress up in Jane Austen period costumes as they went on a #mozzafiatotour (Italian for breath-taking tour) of several heritage sites in Rome (Castel sant’Angelo, Castel del Monte, Botanic Garden in Padova and Vicenza and Villa Foscari, one of the Palladian Villas of the Veneto) while those in Philadelphia recalled a run organized last year near the historic Independence Hall. Our participants in Delhi and Hyderabad included photography groups and tweeted some stunning images from their heritage sites.

Special thanks to the travel, heritage and tourism bodies that helped us spread the word locally – the Durham World Heritage Site (@durhamwhs) in Durham, England, Il mondo di Mauro & Lisi (@IlmondodiMeL) in Rome, Italy,  Delhigram in Delhi, INTACH Hyderabad and Photowalkers  in Hyderabad, and Global Philadelphia (@globalphillyTM) in Philadelphia, USA. We’d also like to thank the vibrant GoUNESCO Campus Ambassador community who were our on-ground co-ordinators spearheading each city’s heritage exploration activities. We plan to replicate this event at a more frequent basis in a larger set of cities over the coming months – If you or an organization you know would like to be associated with this initiative, do email us at makeheritagefun@gounesco.com

We’ve used Storify to consolidate some of the photos that were posted to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

[View the story “Make Heritage Fun” on Storify]