The Open Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit NGO based in Punjab( India) has achieved a significant milestone.
It is celebrating five years of projecting the world's intangible cultural heritage globally.
Since its
inception in 2019, the Foundation has been at the forefront of promoting awareness and
preservation of cultural practices, traditions, and expressions of local communities worldwide.
Their objective is preserving and creating visibility to underrepresented cultural heritage
digitally., said
Rupika Sharma,Director of the Foundation.
" One of its projects is the ongoing international photography contest Wiki Loves Folklore
(WLF) organized with the community, at Wikimedia Commons platform, which is a media
repository of free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media.
The contest, which invites people from all over the world to capture images of cultural practices
and traditions from different regions and diversity, has been instrumental in documenting and
preserving these cultural treasures for future generations, she further added
"The past five years have been a remarkable journey, and we are proud to have played a role in
projecting the world's intangible cultural heritage globally," said Rupika Sharma, Strategy
Director for the Open Heritage Foundation while adding by creating awareness
and promoting the preservation of these cultural practices and traditions, we are helping to keep
them alive for future generations."
Tiven, Global Campaign Coordinator, while sharing his experiences of successful journey of the Foundation said that the Wiki
Loves Folklore, photo campaign and Feminism & Folklore, a concurrent writing contest on
Wikipedia about Women in Folk culture, were some of the unique competitions which were held
internationally to document people’s local folk culture and to showcase the best of their
traditions to the world. " Managing the project has been a roller coaster ride and the support of
the teammates and fellow volunteers round the globe have made this effort worthwhile.” he added.
The contest that began from February 1 will be ending on March 31, So far the team has
received over 21,000 submissions from all over the world from which 4,100 images have been
from India. In the last five years, they have received 64,000 images from around 6000
photographers from over 158 countries.
The Open Heritage Foundation will continue to work towards promoting and preserving the
world's intangible cultural heritage, through initiatives such as Wiki Loves Folklore and other
similar projects,further said Rupika and Tiven while inviting people to
Join to participate in the contest . The link can be found in every Wikipedia page worldwide
on the top of the header.