Recently, the 46th World Heritage Conference was held in New Delhi, India. At the side event themed Technology, Creativity and Empowerment - World Heritage Education for the Future, the UNESCO World Heritage Training and Research Center for Asia and the Pacific (WHITRAP) announced the winners of the 2024 Global World Heritage Education Innovation Case Award (AWHEIC). The case Heritage Youth Talk: Youth Telling the Chinese Experience of Heritage Protection organized and submitted by the Intangible Cultural Heritage Communication Research Center of the School of Cultural Industry Management of Communication University of China stood out among more than 100 participating cases worldwide and won the 2024 Global World Heritage Education Innovation Case - Excellence Star Award.
The application for the Global World Heritage Education Innovation Case Award was led by Yang Hong, director of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Communication Research Center, and Wei Siya, the project executive leader for 23-24. After going through multiple stages including case submission and online defense, the award was finally won.
The 46th World Heritage Conference Technology, Creativity and Empowerment - World Heritage Education for the Future Side Event © Asia Pacific Heritage Center
2024 Global World Heritage Education Innovation Case - Excellence Star Award certificate
Award Overview
The World Heritage Education Innovation Case Award (AWHEIC) is an international award jointly sponsored by the UNESCO World Heritage Institute of Training and Research in Asia and the Pacific and the UNESCO Associated Schools Network International Centre. It aims to recognize practical cases that have made outstanding contributions to the innovation and development of world heritage education and to enhancing the public's understanding and protection of world heritage on a global scale.
In 2024, the competition for the Global World Heritage Education Innovation Case Award became more intense. A total of 30 cases stood out from more than 100 cases around the world, and a total of 10 Excellence Star Awards, 10 Exploration Star Awards and 10 Future Star Awards were awarded. Among them, the Global World Heritage Education Innovation Case - Excellence Star Award is mainly awarded to cases with fruitful cross-border model innovation, certain replicable model experience, and outstanding global innovation demonstration significance.
List of winners of the Global World Heritage Education Innovation Case - Excellence Star Award
The conference gave high praise to the case
The conference highly praised the case of Heritage Youth Speaks: Young People Telling China's Experience in Heritage Protection: Heritage Youth Speaks encourages young people to use new media to tell heritage stories from their own perspectives and languages under the framework of the Protection and Management of World Heritage Sites in China project, and present China's heritage experience to the world in a more real and vivid way. The project went deep into Shilin, Yunnan, Chishui, Guizhou and other places, and cooperated with multiple professional institutions across borders, achieving two-way value transfer and empowerment between heritage sites and young people. In the process of cultivating new media network experts for heritage sites, many young people gradually grew into successors to the cause of heritage protection, opening up new future possibilities for heritage sites and young people.
Award-winning case presentation
Case Introduction
The case of Heritage Youth Speaks: Youth Telling China's Experience in Heritage Protection is mainly based on a three-year online and offline communication project jointly carried out by UNESCO and Communication University of China. Under the framework of the fourth phase of the Protection and Management of World Heritage Sites in China project of the UNESCO-China Youth Development Foundation Mercedes-Benz Star Wish Fund, the Heritage Youth Speaks communication project has successfully completed field visits and online communication work in five world heritage sites: Shilin in Yunnan, Chishui in Guizhou, Wolong and Ya'an in Sichuan, Songtao in Guizhou, and Quanzhou in Fujian, forming 49 short video works, 32 graphic pushes, 10 visual long pictures (Chinese and English versions), 1 mini program, and 6 special research reports (Chinese and English versions). A total of 212 people directly benefited, about 14,000 people indirectly benefited, and it has received promotion support from the official accounts of the United Nations and UNESCO many times. In the three years of practice, the project has enabled young people to tell heritage stories, allowing young people to use new media to inject new vitality into heritage protection and education, and also provided global demonstration significance for the innovation of heritage education models. The Intangible Cultural Heritage Communication Research Center systematically sorted out the project's practice process and results to form teaching and scientific research cases that can be used.
Correspondent: Wei Siya
