This NGO is on a mission to preserve cultural heritage

Our Correspondent

Jalandhar, October 11

An NGO, Open Heritage Foundation, is making concerted efforts to preserve the rich cultural heritage of the country for the present and future generations. The organisation is involved in documenting and disseminating cultural heritage content among people via different platforms, supporting programmes and international media campaigns with an emphasis on bridging the digital cultural divide.

Its founder and strategic director Rupika Sharma says they are working for preserving and sharing copyright-free data pertaining to the cultural heritage. She says their focus is on the preservation of culture in digital form.

Rupika runs international campaigns in collaboration with the Wikimedia community. She says they recently organised an international photography contest, “Wiki Loves Folklore” in collaboration with Wikimedia Commons Community. The focus was on the folk culture, unique folklore and traditions that make up a large portion of the world’s intangible heritage and includes folk dances, music, activities, games, folk cuisine, traditional wear, folktales, arts, religion, mythology and others.

She says the competition elicited 21,000 image submissions, 140 videos and 13 folk songs from over 125 countries.