Virtual Heritage Tour – Inviting tour leaders to take digital audiences on tours of locations around Nepal and the world.

Virtual Heritage Tours are a series of digital storytelling that invite tour leaders to take digital audiences on tours of locations around Nepal and the world. The monthly series has taken numerous themes including climate change in the Himalayas and most recently gender through special edition for the Women of the World Festival Nepal’s Virtual programs.

Through the VHT series, Story Cycle and the British Council have not only increased the digital footprint of isolated and remote outposts of Nepal but have created legacy documents that are full of expert knowledge about these locations and the challenges they face. It has also enhanced the ability to lead the tours to tell better stories about their work.

Previous Editions of Virtual Heritage Tour

Virtual Heritage Tour – COP26:Next steps for Nepal

In this episode of VHT, Dev Kumar Subedi, Pashupati Nath Koirala and Radha Wagle discuss about ways in which Nepal can contribute to reducing global emissions and where the country is at the moment in regards to its implementation plan.

Virtual Heritage Tour – Bankatta, Chitwan

Organized on the occasion of International Day for Biological Diversity, Bankatta, Madi, Chitwan where Sustainable Mountain Architecture (SMA) is constructing homestay and community hall based on traditional architecture coupled with modern climate-efficient design and training / awareness creation to women’s groups who will manage the homestay business as a welcome source of additional local income.

Virtual Heritage Tour – Thori, Parsa

For tenth and Women of the World(WOW) edition of Virtual Heritage tour, we are taking you to Thori, Parsa to discuss the water crisis the people have been facing for years.

Virtual Heritage Tour Dharche

Alija Gurung, a denizen of Dharche, has won the title of Ms Indigenous 2019. She led a tour to Dharche, home to a number of traditionally animist indigenous communities. The literal meaning of Dharche refers to the tradition of installing prayer flags on hills and in the rivers for the well-being and success of travellers from the villages.

Bhaktapur by Night

The VHT Bhaktapur: A Cultural City was led by Rita Suwal, a heritage guide for Bhaktapur. She takes us to the prominent areas of Bhaktapur with night ambience covering monuments, most terra-cotta with carved wood columns, palaces and temples with elaborate carvings, gilded roofs, open courtyards.

Seven Summits

The seventh edition of VHT is a special edition organized in collaboration with WOW Virtual Nepal 2020, a month-long online women festival. The tour will be led by Shailee Basnet, an Everest submitter turned comedian, is the leader of the ‘Seven Summits Women Team’, world’s first female group to climb the highest mountain in each continent. She will be sharing some of the hard-earned insights learned both on and off the mountains. Click the button below to participate.

Saipal

Virtual Heritage Tour Saipal was led by Bhoj Raj Bhat. In the tour, he guided us on the cultural and natural attractions. Bhoj Raj Bhat, a resident of the far-west and the journalist, movie maker, known for his documentary ‘Sunakali’ and the director of the expedition Mission Saipal, a mission to bring a social change in that community by liberating the women from discrimination in the Saipal region.

Dhe

Dhe villagers are struggling with their traditional modes of subsistence due to the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events linked to climate change and environmental degradation in the region. Dwindling natural resources and the speed of the change are further affecting the resilience of the community. Their indigenous knowledge and adaptive techniques are becoming insufficient, and thus ineffective, forcing both individuals and communities to migrate elsewhere for survival as the last resort-Dhe: A Moving Story.

Everest

International Everest Day has been observed on 29th May by the world’s highest Everest summiteer for a maximum number of times Kami Rita Sherpa. He has taken a tour to his native land Thame Village, Sherpas traditions, their history in the Everest expedition to celebrate this year’s International Everest Day.

Lumbini

Lumbini, in the western Tarai plains of Nepal, is popular as the birthplace of Buddha. The only UNESCO cultural heritage site outside Kathmandu Valley, Lumbini has many beautiful monuments and shrines built with the help of devotees from around the world. The main attraction in Lumbini is the sacred garden accommodating the Maya Devi temple depicting the birth of Lord Buddha, the Tank where Maya Devi is supposed to have taken a bath before the baby was born and the Ashoka Pillar pointing Buddha’s birthplace and other holy sites all around the place. A visit to sacred Lumbini definitely ensures peace of mind and the principles of Buddha and PEACE is what our world needs today more than anything else. A symbol of unity in diversity, Lumbini is regarded as the fountain of world peace.

Barpak

Nepal experienced a major earthquake – with epicentre in Gorkha district’s Barpak – on April 25, 2015, which triggered the huge loss of lives and property, unprecedented in the country’s history. Almost the entire Barpak was flattened, with huge loss of lives and property.

Bagmati Promenade

StoryCycle has been able to bring in community leaders, youth leaders and government leaders in one place and their support for the campaign further in the future. We were able to build a strong relationship with the Ward Chairperson-11 and City Planning Commission of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City(KMC) and have pledged to contribute to our efforts to create situational analysis reports regarding Thapathali-Teku Stretch. A detailed mapping and digital documentation have been carried out which covering the cultural and religious sites. Through these heritage walks, we are aiming at making the local community and commuters aware of the preservation and promotion of culture and natural heritage. These walks will also mobilise the youth, engage and integrate them into the movement for sustainable conservation with the aid of technology.

If you would like to lead a tour of your place, please email us at contact@storycycle.com

Capturing Historical Pyangaun

Pyan gaun is a small and beautiful centuries old crafting village of Newars in Chapagaun Lalitpur, just around 14 km south of Kathmandu. The main language of communication in Pyan Gaun is Newari. The major festivals celebrated in Pyan Gaun are Indra Jatra when the people of Pyangaun perform a form of dance known as Kug Pyakha (this dance was done in front of King in Hanuman Dhoka) , Nasa Dyo Puja, Mul Jatra during Chaitra Purnima and Gai jatra.

Pyangaun Heritage Walk

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Anciently known as Sitapur, Pyangaun is a century old craft village. Historical stone inscriptions can be seen dated N.S. 922 and 932. As per the locals, it is believed that a Malla king got married in the area and settled with his second wife and established pyang mana pathi production as an economic stability for the area. The village got its name ‘pyangaun’ from its unique profession of making beautiful bamboo buckets used to measure grains. These buckets became regional standard measurements in units called Maana and Pathi. The bamboo is called ‘pyang’ from newar language. The skill of making bamboo baskets not only identifies their villages but also represents a unique heritage. Hence, it played an important role in supplying traditional bamboo units to measure and weigh goods.

The settlement is known for its excellence in crafting bamboo, particularly in making buckets used for measurement. Mainly inhabitants of this village are Newars but in recent times Magars people also have started living in the outskirts of the settlement.

Building a sustainable city requires complex multi-disciplinary approaches to take effective and inclusive actions. The transformation is a collaborative process, which requires contributions from all including planners (architects/ engineers), local government, community members, educational institutions, researchers, NGOs, etc. Acme Engineering College collaborated with Story Cycle along with partnership with the British Council-Nepal with a vision to scale ‘Our Dream City’ campaign . The primary objective of the campaign is to design and plan for building more inclusive, creative and sustainable cities by facilitating communication between key stakeholders: Municipality (City Officials), Experts (Engineers, Architects, Urban Planners) and Community. The project will be supported by international experts in the fields of Architecture (Prof. Dr. Sangeeta Singh, TU, IOE, Nepal) and Equitable & Resilient development (Dr. Jonathan Ensor, University of York, UK) as advisors. The students from the Architecture Department at Acme, currently studying in eighth semester, are also involved in this project. The pilot project will be carried out at Pyangaun, which is a settlement located at Godavari Municipality in the Lalitpur district of Nepal. It is a centuries-old crafting village, known for its excellence in crafting bamboo, particularly in making buckets used for measurement called ‘Pyang’.

ACME college with StoryCycle is helping the community of Pyangaun to preserve its history of “Pyang” by increasing digital footprints and collecting stories on the internet through the locals. StoryCycle with the cooperation of Acme, have managed to teach the students and the members of pyangaun on how to create digital footprints on the internet with the help of StoryCamp where participants go out in the field and take various pictures and photos of the culture, people, product and the place that is pyangaun.

The Students of ACME college has been visiting Pyangaun inorder to give the locals of the village proper directions on digital mapping and storytelling. Architect and Engineering students from ACME college, with the help of StoryCycle, have been helping the locals of Pyangaun to understand how the village has been set up, helping the locals better understand their village from a different perspective. Each individual was learning from the other, the students from ACME learning from the villagers and vice-versa, both parties brought something to the table. The villagers knew about the people, product and village itself and the students from ACME knew about what should be done in order to improve their village.

During the initial phase of the program the participants were introduced to what storycycle did, what Our Dream City was and how the youths of this era can increase their digital presence of their culture and their heritage on the internet with technology. We demonstrated how they could take map points from a certain location and add it to the map accessible to everyone around the world visiting would know about.

Later when ACME visited Pyangaun with StoryCycle, it was for the sole purpose of teaching the participants about StoryCamp. In “StoryCamp: Visual Storytelling Session ” under Our Dream City Campaign, the participants got hands-on mentorship on visual storytelling including photography, filmmaking and script development, which they can use to establish their own digital footprints. StoryCycle taught the participants the basics of photography, filmmaking and script development, which they could use in their daily lives to contribute to their digital presence.

Some of the participants even went further on ahead by submitting some of the pictures they had taken after the session was over the very next day.

Enhancing Online Presence, Barpak

Barpak, the epicenter of the earthquake that occurred in 2015 A.D. Barpak is located in the northern part of the Gorkha district. It is at an altitude of about 1900 meters above sea level. The village is inhabited by ethnic groups like Gurungs, Ghales, Pariyars, and Sunuwars, among others. Young people, who had migrated out for work, have started returning to the village to run various businesses due to hydropower services. It has changed from a state of a mundane village to a vibrant tourism destination.

On Earthquake memorial week, April 25-26-27, 2021, StoryCycle along with Barpak Sulikot Rural Municipality, Barpak Frienship Society, Nepal Tourism Board and British Council is organizing a Photo Exhibition and Virtual Heritage tour of Barpak, Gorkha to reminiscence the devastating earthquake of 2015 and resurgence of Barpak. The objectives of the campaign is to exhibit photographs about Barpak through Nepal Tourism Board for a period of 10 days, populating its information digitally and taking the city’s online presence to new heights.

Online Photo Exhibition, Barpak

An Online Photo Exhibition of Barpak with PhotoNepal.Travel website of the Nepal Tourism Board will be exhibitied as part of the campaign “Enhancing Online Presence”. The proposed activity will be preceded by calls and capacity building to curate quality media assets to form the exhibition. We believe that with such a digital approach, branding local products, local-level capacity building and promotion of tourism can be easily carried out through community engagement.

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Virtual Heritage Tour(VHT)

Virtual Heritage Tours are part of Our Dream City, a campaign designed by StoryCycle with the British Council to empower youth and community narratives around the development of their localities. It equips initiators with digital tools, arts, and a platform to engage their own community as well as wider civic processes. Virtual Heritage Tour(VHT) take home-bound viewers on tours of locations around Nepal, sampling the landscape, culture, people and history while also taking stock of issues in these destinations.

Enhancing Online Presence, Dharche

Dharche possesses tremendous potential for tourism development because of its unique natural and cultural heritage. There was an essence to enhance its online presence. To enhance the online presence of Dharche, Gorkha, we collaborated with locals, policymakers and experts and tried to lay a foundation for e-readiness of Dharche where 11 local leaders were participating in the project.

The various organizations involved in the project were StoryCycle, British Council, Nepal Tourism Board, National Federation of Deaf Nepal(NFDN), Dharche Rural Municipality and ibriz.

Call for Photos Dharche

We announced an Open Call to people of Dharche to submit photos from Dharche Rural Municipality for the Dharche photo exhibition. The event was hosted through the platform of Nepal Tourism Board namely phtonepal.travel where more than 1,000 people were reached via social media posts.

Training on Digital Storytelling and Mapping

In an effort to increase and enhance the digital presence of Dharche(Gorkha, Nepal), we conducted two camps for digital storytelling and mapping where 18 people were trained.

Photo Exhibition of Dharche

By accumulating these data and information, StoryCycle has launched a photo exhibition with the PhotoNepal.Travel website of the Nepal Tourism Board as part of its campaign “Enhancing Online presence” that is part of a collaborative effort with the British Council to harness the power of digital narratives to support youth engagement with community gains. The proposed activity will be preceded by calls and capacity building to curate quality media assets to form the exhibition.

The photo exhibition was started on December 1 and ended on December 10, 2020, ten days long photo exhibition of Dharche. More than 1,000 people were the viewers of the Dharche photo exhibition.

Virtual Heritage Tour_Dharche

After the succession of all these activities, we proceeded with our packaged program_Virtual Heritage Tour.

Virtual Heritage Tours are part of Our Dream City, a campaign designed by StoryCycle with the British Council to empower youth and community narratives around the development of their localities. It equips initiators with digital tools, arts, and a platform to engage their own community as well as wider civic processes. Virtual Heritage Tours were incentivised by the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns and envisioned to take home-bound viewers on tours of locations around Nepal, sampling the landscape, culture, people and history while also taking stock of issues in these destinations.

More than 40 people viewed the VHT Dharche episode through Facebook and Zoom.