UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee holds its 46th session from 21 to 31 July 2024 in New Delhi, India. The winner list of the 2024 Global Awards for World Heritage Education Innovative Cases (AWHEIC) was announced at a side event themed “Science, Creativity and Empowerment: World Heritage Education Towards the Future” during the session.
The 2024 AWHEIC received nearly 100 cases from around the world and 30 winning cases were selected. Among them, the “No. 7 Archives: A New Model of Immersive Education for Memory Heritage” project of the China National Silk Archives in Suzhou won the “Star of Outstanding” award.
The AWHEIC is co-organized by the World Heritage Institute of Training and Research for the Asia and the Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO (WHITRAP) and the International Center for the UNESCO ASPnet (ICUA) in the hope to build an international platform focusing on the innovation of World Heritage Education models, aiming to promote the sharing of relevant international experience and future cooperation and contribute to the comprehensive and sustainable development of heritage sites.
The China National Silk Archives in Suzhou was established in 2015 with the approval of the General Office of the State Council. It is a national-level professional archive museum integrating such functions as collection, storage, research, exhibition, education and publicity and is also the first of its kind established in a prefecture-level city. It houses the Archives of Suzhou Silk from Modern and Contemporary Times, a collection of silk sample archives in 29,592 volumes, which were inscribed on the Memory of the World International Register by UNESCO in 2017. These include samples, processing techniques and real objects gradually accumulated from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century. And the China National Silk Archives launched the “No. 7 Archives: A New Model of Immersive Education for Memory Heritage” project at the end of 2020, which features interactive activities offering visitors immersive experience of memory heritages through the integration of science and creativity.
