Heritage Walk Karachi
The way to experience the milieu of vibrant living culture of Old Town
Karachi is to walk through it.
Heritage Walk Karachi actively engages people from around the city with Old Town and other areas of historical significance. Through these tours, individuals explore the city in a way that engages all their senses. The past becomes more real, something tangible they can relate to, learn from and uncover.
We at Heritage Walk Karachi work to preserve and activate the memories and memorabilia of Old Town by archiving and exhibiting them tirelessly.
Our tour guide Shaheen Nauman is one of the first women in Pakistan to lead their own historical tour. Having spent a significant portion of her life exploring the area on her own, Nauman is well versed in the histories and stories of Old Town Karachi.
collaborations
“Partition City Karachi”
A Research Project of Pakistan Chowk Community Center (PCCC) partnered with Lancaster University UK to develop a "Partition City Karachi" app to tell the stories of Pakistan's first capital during the Partition in 1947 and the decade after.
“Our Shared Cultural Heritage (OSCH)”
“Our Shared Cultural Heritage (OSCH)” is a youth-led programme that is exploring the shared cultures and histories of the UK and South Asia in partnership with Manchester Museum, Glasgow Life UK Youth. Heritage Walk Karachi, showed Karachi’s Oldtown and discussed potential of research collaboration.
@mcrmuseum @osch.youngpeople @glasgow.life @glasgowlife @britishcouncil @britishcouncilpakistan
Dana MacLeod, Regional Director Arts, British Council, Fiona Robertson, Senior Academic Manager, British Council, Michael Houlgate, Director Sindh and Balochistan, British Council Pakistan, Khadija Hussaini, Project Coordinator Arts, British Council Pakistan joined the Heritage Walk
Workshop: ‘Walking Heritage into Future Cities’, University of Exeter, UK
Heritage Walk Karachi will be participating in the workshop “Walking Heritage into Future Cities” organized by University of Exeter and Heritage Walk Calcutta in Exeter, UK.
Walking Heritage into Future Cities (henceforth Walking Heritage) is a new project addressing some of the challenges that threaten the unique and complex built and social heritage such as economic development, rapid urbanization and communal tensions in four South Asian cities. The project is a collaboration between the University of Exeter’s Archaeology department and Business School and Heritage Walk Calcutta (HWC), an innovative social enterprise combining academic research excellence with ethical community development through heritage tourism, especially walking tours.
The aim of Walking Heritage is not to preserve through policy and legislation, but to protect and nurture through awareness, knowledge-sharing, income-generation, and community engagement following the model developed by HWC and HWK. A workshop at Exeter will provide the opportunity for knowledge exchange and to compare and contrast these two models of operation to come up with a set of best practices for ethical, research-based, community-oriented urban heritage tourism projects in South Asia. The model thus developed will then be tested through an incubation program at Kolkata. Jaffna, Sri Lanka and Hyderabad, India have been selected to test this incubation program for their rich histories, post-colonial conflicts about heritage and identity, and current exponential growth of urbanization.
The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) is an UK Government fund to support cutting-edge research that addresses the challenges faced by developing countries. The Walking Heritage into Future Cities project is a GCRF-funded interdisciplinary collaboration between University of Exeter’s Department of Archaeology and Business School and Heritage Walk Calcutta (HWC), an academic-led, community-focused heritage tourism company in Kolkata, India.
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