Although Rwandans treasure their heritage, cultural preservation remains among the low earning activities, and only a few young people are involved. But this may change, should a new project named ‘Rwanda Heritage Hub’ that was launched on Friday, August 19 become successful. The New Times’ Glory Iribagiza had an interview with Robert Masozera, the Director General for Rwanda Cultural Heritage Academy (RCHA), about the project and other aspects of culture and heritage preservation in the country.What is Rwanda Heritage Hub (RHH)? RHH is an inventive project developed by RCHA in line with the Youth Heritage Africa Programme, designed by ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property) to promote heritage as an economic asset to address poverty and unemployment among young people in Africa. Specifically, RHH aims to empower and engage youth in heritage conservation and valorisation as well as developing innovative businesses through digital technologies. What are the expected results from the project? During the two-year starting period of the project implementation, at least 50 young entrepreneurs will be trained on cultural heritage valorisation and business development using digital technologies, and hence respond to the issue of youth unemployment through new job creation. At least 50 young heritage professionals and practitioners will benefit from the RHH capacity building program in heritage management using digital technologies; and 6 best new heritage-related businesses will be incubated and prized. Also, the communication gap existing between the cultural heritage and the people shall be cut off through a number of communication strategies and activities. What gaps is the RHH project coming to bridge? This project will bridge the communication gap existing between the cultural heritage and communities, especially the youth. It will also increase the level of engagement of youth in heritage preservation and valorisation. It will position cultural heritage in youth job creation, introduce the use of digital technologies in heritage management; and will lead to a multi-sectoral common understanding on the preservation of cultural heritage and the role of each and everyone in this noble mission. What is being done to preserve historical sites that have been damaged overtime for cultural based tourism? From over 500 sites in Rwanda, sites so far researched and documented into a book to be published soon, are 107. These sites (cultural, natural or mixed) cut across various districts in the country. It’s within RCHA’s mandate to protect, manage and conserve sites of outstanding value. So, the identification and documentation of some sites now is part of the process to conserve what can be transferred to other generations to come. We have realised that most of the sites’ physical attributes were fading away and it was time to document before much is lost. For sites that risk vanishing away, we are planning to put more effort into doing a survey to come up with a “Rapid Conservation Statement” as a toolkit to inform conservation measures; either preventive or remedial conservation methods. We have done this in Nyanza District and we wish to do the same across other districts. Several African countries have their historical artefacts returned to them from former colonialists. How is it for Rwanda? The government of Rwanda has formally made an official request to the federal government of the Kingdom of Belgium, asking for the repatriation of all cultural heritage property from Rwanda illegally taken to Belgium. From this, it is understood we may receive them in the future. The sound archives RCHA has recently received from the Africa Museum have not been shared with us within the repatriation process mentioned above. It was done within the partnership framework we have with that museum specifically in the framework of the musicological project we are conducting together. We have started exploiting those sound archives and we are preparing an exhibition on Rwandan music for which they will be the core content. What are the major challenges the academy is facing with the preservation of culture? The preservation of culture is always a challenging issue, be it in Rwanda or elsewhere, particularly in this era of globalisation. In the case of RCHA, the big challenge is to reach all Rwandans particularly the youth and convince them they are all actors of culture preservation. With globalisation, there are new things which come from outside and we need to protect our culture from being destroyed on one hand, and, as a people, we must integrate the positive aspects on the other hand. The challenge in preservation is to balance and marry those two aspects. How is cultural based tourism fairing up in relation to the past years? For the past years, community-based tourism has and is still playing a great role in promoting and raising awareness of cultural heritage resources in Rwanda. RCHA has a very good working relationship with various Community Based Tourism Enterprises (CBTE’S) through the many MoU’s signed and within an existing sports and cultural tourism cluster for economic growth. So far, together with key players in the tourism industry like Rwanda Development Board, GIZ Eco-emploi, Mastercard Foundation (Hanga Ahazaza), Horwath HTL, and District authorities, we have managed to identify tourism business enterprises along heritage sites, museums, cultural hiking trails for these CBTE’S to venture in. This relationship creates economic benefits to them as well as to local communities. We have tangible results on ground from witnesses like Beyond the Gorillas Experience, Red rocks, Gorilla Guardians, and Ishobe Centre, among others. We are also creating cultural spaces for them as a platform for events management and recreation at museums and heritage sites. These platforms give them a larger audience to reach out to the public and also it’s a moment for them to exhibit what they offer to tourists. The progress is very promising in cultural tourism and on domestic tourism promotion. Our task now is to put more efforts in diversification and development of cultural tourism products to match with the current high demand on the international market. We shall do all it takes to make this a success story for Rwanda and beyond.
