Preserving the Written Cultural Heritage of Nepal
Connecting to Community - Local School Students Learn About Book Preservation
As part of the Nepal School Project of the project “Preserving the Written Cultural Heritage of Nepal”, Bidur Bhattarai and the preservation team regularly introduce school-age students to manuscripts and their preservation in Kathmandu. In the spring of 2024, groups of school students from the Prasiddha Modern School, as well as international students of the Rangjung Yeshe Institute, Kathmandu, visited the workplace at the Āśā Saphūkuthi and learned about the preservation measures and process that are being undertaken for manuscripts there. The event also included lessons on different writing supports, materials, writing systems, scripts, and how to handle handwritten artifacts. This work is critical for connecting local youth and community members to their cultural heritage and introducing them to manuscripts and their care within this context.
Staff from the National Archives of Nepal were also welcomed to the Āśā Saphūkuthi for a one-day workshop in March (2024) to introduce them to materials from the collection and efforts to clean, stabilize, and rehouse manuscripts there. These events build connections between institutions and support the sharing of information about preservation and care of handwritten heritage materials.
A hands-on cultural heritage event was organised for high school students in Kathmandu (November, 2023) to learn about the manuscript preservation work taking place at the Āśā Saphūkuthi. The event, part of the knowledge exchange work of the project, provided a one-day interactive course on manuscript preservation, stabilisation, and digitisation, highlighting the work taking place at the archive. The future of the preservation and use of manuscripts relies on connecting young people from local communities with their cultural heritage.
