SMALL SEMINAR 'Heritage Movement in Aceh'
Wednesday, 28 September 2005, 4.00 to 6.30 pm.
Seminar Room, Architecture Department Building
University of Syiah Kuala (UNSYIAH)
Darussalam, Banda Aceh-NAD, Indonesia

The small seminar was organized by Aceh Heritage Community Foundation or Yayasan Komunitas Lestari Pusaka Aceh as one of the activities of 'Aceh, Soul, Soil and Society Project'.

Objectives

• To introduce Aceh Heritage Community Foundation and its activities
• to the stakeholders concern on heritage in Aceh;
• To raise public awareness on the heritage movements especially in Aceh;
• To build networking among heritage stakeholders in Aceh.

This meeting was attended by 35 participants including the speakers. The participants represent the stakeholders concern on heritage Aceh from government officials historian, antropologist from Aceh Museum, Aceh Documentation Center and Balai Kajian Sejarah dan Nilai Traditional Aceh, lecturers and students from University of Syiah Kuala, proffesional architects and private sectors from architect consultant firm (Caixa Consultant), Int'l NGO (The Johanniter, International Assistant), ADB and USAID representative, UN agencies (UNIFEM), senior experts on heritage and other people concern.

The meeting was divided into 3 sessions, first is the presentation on 'Aceh Heritage Community (AHC)' by Yenny Rahmayati (Yeyen), the Executive Director of AHC, second is presentation on 'Sharing Experience on Heritage Movement' by Mr. Alfred Kooijman, Architect, Urban Planner, senior heritage expert) from Netherlands and the last session is the discussion/answer and question session.

Result points should be follow-up:

1. More heritage buildings/sites were informed by the participants, this info should be added to the list of inventory;
2. There is an idea to make 'Banda Aceh Heritage Trail/City Tour/Tsunami Tour';
3. There is an idea to establish 'Aceh Traditional Village/Dusun Wisata' as one of the tourism destinations in Banda Aceh/Aceh Besar;
4. There is an idea to conduct training for the young people of Aceh on how to build the Aceh Traditional House including the skills to make carving of house ornaments to preserve its establishment. It is predicted that this knowledge and skills will gradually disappear since this knowledge and skills is less popular among the Aceh young people at the time being. Another factor is that there is no demand for the Aceh Traditional House, so the demand should be created first. All stakeholders agreed to work together to create the demand in many ways, so far only a few Aceh Traditional 'architects' left, most of them are the carpentry and old people;
5. There is an idea, to make heritage more popular and widespread, it should involved the 'public figure' as an 'icon' to promote the heritage awareness. It can be influenced people from government, cultural leaders, etc;
6. Government should support the heritage activity;
7. There should be an integrated planning from all stakeholders, so the proposal will be the comprehensive one, not made from one by one by each party. It makes easier to approach funding and to catch the attention of the people and the result also will be significant;
8. There should be another meetings conducted to follow-up those issues;

Save Aceh Heritage

Post-Tsunami Alert

Documenting
the Heritage of Aceh

Sponsors

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Introduction to Aceh
Aceh Heritage Sites

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Aceh Heritage
Community Foundation

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Renovation Project
(Ex Mulo School)

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