GoUNESCO is an initiative supported by UNESCO New Delhi with the objective of making heritage fun. It raises awareness about the need of conservation and preservation of World Heritage Sites in fun and innovative ways such as: online challenges, which encourage participants to travel to WHS both on a global level and on a country specific level; GoHeritage runs at heritage locations across South India and the Campus Ambassadors program.
History
In 2012, Ajay Reddy, the founder and first challenger, came across a tweet from @pallavisavant in which a�simple�question was posed: �How many have you been to?� The question was referring to a picture that was posted alongside the tweet and which depicted a �ticket to any World Heritage Site in India�. Ajay found that he could not identify half of the Heritage Sites in that picture and made a personal challenge. He decided to visit all UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India in one calendar year. Many people have joined him during this journey, and in 2013 the GoUNESCO challenge went global.
Activities
Online Travel Challenges
Travelers upload their pictures on the GoUNESCO website. After the photos are checked and approved by moderators, the traveler is awarded points for the proof he or she has submitted.
Current Challenges
- The Epic Challenge
It challenges the participants to visit all World Heritage Sites across the world. There is no time limit for this challenge, it is a goal to achieve during one�s lifetime.
- Culture Challenge
Travelers are challenged to experience and submit pictures, videos and descriptions of Intangible cultural heritage that they have participated in or which they have observed while traveling across the world. Like the epic challenge, there is no time limitation to complete this challenge.
- USA 2015
All travel has to be done in the calendar year 2015, from January to December 2015. The first traveler who visits all Heritage Sites, or the person with the most points at the end of the year wins the challenge.
- India 2015
In this challenge, participants are challenged to travel to all World Heritage Sites in India in the 2015 calendar year. The winner is the person who first manages to visit all of the sites, or who has the most points at the end of the year.
The Wikipedia page I chose for this task is UNESCO’s Wikipedia page,�http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNESCO. I followed the format by providing a brief history of GoUNESCO first and then describing some of its activities. Since this task is limited to only one page, I wasn’t able to include descriptions of all activities or additional information that I would have otherwise included.