By Yunus S Saliu
National Centre for Arts and Culture (NCAC) under theMinistry Tourism and Culture (MoTC) in partnership with the NATCOM UNESCO with other stakeholders from Banjul community and other institutions, on Monday, 16th October 2023 validated report of the inventories heritage of Banjul.
The validation forum was held at the Methodist Church Hall in Dobson, Banjul and was attended by different stakeholders across Banjul.
HassoumCeesay, Director General of the NCAC thanked participants for their large turnout at the validation forum.
He stated that in early 2023 NCAC benefited from a UNESCO Participation Program to inventories the heritage of Banjul so as to have confirmed data on its significant origins and states of conservation so that it can allow the government to make an informed decision to protect and valorise them to build tourism,provide employment for Banjul youths and cultivate a sense of pride among Gambians, “because Banjul as the capital belongs to all.”
After six weeks of work, he disclosed, 150 heritage sites and visualswere identified and inventoried including wharves,krriting houses, churches, mosques, buildings, fanals.
“Our partners included Banjul City Council, NATCOM UNESCO, Banjul NAMS, BCC Councillors, religious leaders,’ historians, architects, department of Lands and Survey,” he noted while thanking UNESCO for the funding, Ministry of Tourism and Culture, and the Gambia Tourism Board, elected representatives of Banjul for their supports.
Speaking on behalf of Ms. MaimunaSidibeh, acting Secretary-General of the NATCOM UNESCO, Mr LaminJarjou, Senior Program Officer NATCOM UNESCO expressed gratitude to participants and all those partaken in the document for validation, in an extension the NCAC for coming up with this valuable and important project.
He said the inventories of the Banjul Heritage Sites is very dear to the heart of the UNESCO and apart from that, it is the capital city of The Gambia which makes it more important, saying in the past the Banjul played a role of garrison where slavery was stopped and among other positive roles.
He described Banjul as a unique place in The Gambia noting that the Banjul city and McCarthy known as Janjanbureh are theonly two places in the country that are a planned town, city or settlements in The Gambia whereby people live according to designated areas.
Therefore, he enjoined stakeholdersto try and see that what is left of Banjul – the history is kept to live and Banjul has produced a lot of legend which need to be documented
“We are happy to be associated with this project and we hope more idea could be generated and from this we can promulgate the historic Banjul and take this for sensitization for people to know about the city. We are also happy that the National Centre for Arts and Culture and Ministry of Tourism and Culture will want to present Banjul as a tentative list for enlisting in UNESCO Heritage Site and prayed that it become part of the UNESCO Heritage Site.”
He, therefore, congratulated the MoTC, NCAC for this final product which expectation of everyone is that Banjul be enlisted on the tentatively list of the UNESCO World Heritage.
MamatSallah, assistant director of Museum Monument and Heritage thanked all that participated in the exercise right from begin to the validated stage.
He highlighted the process of the inventories starting from orientation, mapping, identification, data creations among other stages, noting after the validation “we will continue to improve on it and come up with policy on all these places that we want to documented.”