World Tourism Day: Let’s Educate Children about the Value of Cultural Heritage
Our culture is our identity, what happens when it is not preserved?
As the world celebrates the World Tourism Day 2020 with the theme: "Tourism and Rural Development", it is worthy to note the relationship between tourism and culture. Aside from the economic and financial benefits, tourism plays an important role in preserving our unique and shared cultures.
According to Zurab Pololikashvili (UNWOT Secretary), “tourism helps rural communities hold onto their unique natural and cultural heritage, supporting conservation projects, including those safeguarding endangered species, lost traditions or flavour.”
Protecting our cultural heritage is important because, it brings about an automatic sense of unity and allows us to better understand previous generations and the history of where we come from. Our cultural heritage is something we all share. Moreso, its preservation will help future generations to look into the past and connect it with the present. Hence, the need to educate children about the value of protecting our cultural heritage in and outside the classroom environment as the world marks this year’s World Tourism Day.
Below are three reasons why we should enlighten our children about the value of cultural heritage so that, they can better help preserve it:
1. Understanding brings about appreciation: As humans, when we understand something, we tend to value it, and when we value something, we definitely protect that thing. In order to preserve our cultural heritage, it is important for children to be taught because, through a proper understanding, they will appreciate, promote, and preserve our cultural heritage better.
2. Children will be inspired to connect to their culture: When teaching children the importance of cultural heritage, children can easily be inspired by thoughts of their own culture. When you connect with your culture, you connect more with people around you and this will better help to preserve it from dying.
3. The future will benefit from the teaching of cultural heritage: When children know how people lived in the past, this will guide them to look inward and also to look forward and future generations will benefit a great deal from it. History has sad times, things we feel ashamed of and bad about, but by learning and understanding the past, we can protect the future and avoid making the mistakes of the past.
Therefore, protecting our cultural heritage requires a collective effort. We can work together to protect it. The idea of having something important being destroyed is terrifying. Children who have an understanding of cultural heritage will feel the need to protect it and make sure that it is carried from one generation to another. Let us protect our natural and cultural heritage. Happy World Tourism Day!