DUTCH IN CHINSURAH
A digital resource for histories between the 17-19th century in Chinsurah

HERITAGE WALK WORKSHOP FOR CHINSURAH

The second approach towards community engagement was "World Looking at Chinsurah", the objective was to identity the global values associated with Chinsurah. Workshops, symposiums, social media and the website were envisaged as a way of bringing together not only experts and enthusiasts but also people in Netherlands with genealogical interest in Chinsurah. The aim is to secure a place for Chinsurah on the tourist map for both Indian and International Tourists.

Creating heritage awareness not only through heritage trails but inviting the community to contribute to the storyline, identifying not only architectural landmarks but also community specific points, training local residents as volunteer guides and bringing cultural change. With this aim, the third workshop held on 16th October 2014 was centered around developing a narrative and heritage trail for Chinsurah informed by the local history, stories and assimilation of the archival research which was conducted with local historians and enthusiasts. A heritage trail and map was thus prepared by the project team based on the output from the workshop and consultation with other experts such as Bauke Van der Pol, who has recently published a book on the ‘The Dutch VOC in India’. Two local historians were trained to conduct the heritage walk.