Work Category: Tourism

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.

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.

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.