Tuesday, June 14, 2022
The United States Embassy is pleased to invite the public to the inauguration of the first educational community museum “Achachilanakasana Yanakapa” in Pallina Grande, Viacha, on Wednesday, June 15 at 09:30 a.m. The museum is located near Cruz Andina, at the entrance to “El Carmen” Educational Unit.
This museum is part of a community cultural project implemented along the Qhapac Ñan Route and funded by the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia through the U.S. Department of State Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation. The Fund is supporting six community museums located along the Desaguadero-Viacha road that overlaps with the ancient Qhapac Ñan Inca Trail in the Department of La Paz. The project includes cataloging and preserving cultural heritage objects from the six participating communities. This initiative will increase local community capabilities for education and cultural interpretation, incorporate modern educational tools, and promote tourism among national and international visitors. The Fund is contributing more than $116,000 to the project.
Technical experts in the project are facilitating and helping each community to design and enhance the museums, where the voices and vision of each community are represented.
“Preservation of cultural heritage is essential for economic reactivation through tourism and serves to strengthen the bonds of friendship between the peoples of Bolivia and the United States,” said U.S. Embassy Cultural Affairs Officer Ilona Aleksandrova.
To date, several Bolivian cultural heritage sites have received nearly $2 million from the Fund, for a wide variety of programs ranging from the restoration of churches and artworks, to cataloging and digitization of historic photographs, to audiovisual documentation of the Afro-Bolivian culture, as well as restoration of ancient archaeological sites. In almost all cases, these projects not only revamped historic sites, but also created economic opportunities by making the sites more attractive to tourism.
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