UNESCO WHV 2023 – Let’s Heritage at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, Mumbai

The WHV Initiative was launched in 2008 to encourage young people to undertake concrete actions and play an active role in the protection, preservation and promotion of World Heritage. It consists of action camp projects organized by organizations or institutions, involving national and international volunteers in awareness-raising and hands on activities. These projects are implemented in cooperation with multiple stakeholders and partners, including the local communities, who work together towards the preservation of our common cultural and natural heritage. This year 76 action camp projects will be implemented from April to December 2023 at 69 World Heritage properties and sites on the Tentative Lists, by 58 organizations in 33 countries around the globe. 

The World Heritage Volunteers Initiative is led by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre in collaboration with Better World.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, the WHV 2023 projects will involve young people, communities and site managers in building new, inclusive societies together where World Heritage is a source of resilience, humanity and innovation. National and international volunteers will work together with the local communities to preserve our common cultural and natural heritage, through concrete hands-on and awareness-raising activities, which will provide empowering and enriching opportunities to young people and enable them to go beyond the constraints of geography to some of the most outstanding places in the world.

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, formerly known as Victoria Terminus Station, in Mumbai, is an outstanding example of Victorian Gothic Revival architecture in India, blended with themes deriving from Indian traditional architecture. The building, became the symbol of Bombay as the ‘Gothic City’ and the major international mercantile port of India. It is an outstanding example of the meeting of two cultures, as British architects worked with Indian craftsmen to include Indian architectural tradition and idioms thus forging a new style unique to Bombay.