SHS : AWARENESS RAISING, ADVOCACY AND SHOWCASING HERITAGE
The Sarawak Heritage Society (SHS) is a registered Sarawak NGO founded in 2006. We are a non-partisan, non-governmental and non-profit membership organization.
WHAT WE DO
OUR COMMITTEE
MEMBERSHIP
Our MISSION is to promote the conservation, permanent preservation and sustainable management of Sarawak’s unique cultural heritage assets, both tangible and intangible.
Our VISION is a Sarawak where all stakeholders value the rich and unique cultural heritage and diligently contribute, directly or indirectly, to its ongoing sensitive and sustainable protection, conservation and management.
Over the years SHS has organised talks, film screenings and visits to raise heritage awareness for its members, the public and schools. It has been instrumental in the development of the Kuching Heritage Trail, which it hopes to continue to enhance. It has piloted community engagement programmes in Siniawan and the Fort Alice restoration project (Sri Aman). It contributed to the training of tourist guides. It has raised alarm on some threatened or disappearing heritage assets.
ANNUAL REPORT 2019-2020 ANNUAL REPORT 2018-2019 ANNUAL REPORT 2017-2018
Join us if you are interested in Sarawak’s cultural heritage
and wish to support our cause
HERITAGE ?
“HERITAGE is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to our future generations” (UNESCO). It encompasses many things, “tangible” or “intangible”: an object, a landscape, a building, a settlement, a historical site, language, literature, music, dance, social practices, knowledge, food, traditional craftsmanship. These things are important to us because they tell us about who we are and the past that has formed our community and our environment. It’s the link between our past and where we are now.
“My heritage has been my grounding, and it has brought me peace” Maureen O’Hara
“A country without a past has the emptiness of a barren continent… And a city without old buildings is like a man without memory.” Graeme Shankland
“Heritage-led regeneration works. It pays real economic dividends. Historic buildings and neighbourhoods are a huge economic and cultural asset.” Philip Davies, former director of English Heritage [quoted in “Britain’s crumbling colonial heritage laid bare in shocking pictures” article, Telegraph (UK), 24 Apr. 2016]
“A concerted effort to preserve our heritage is a vital link to our cultural, educational, aesthetic, inspirational and economic legacies – all of the things that quite literally make us who we are.” Steve Berry