Chiva Chaitya - Respect, Promote, Protect

Community engagement through heritage protection. “The people in Chiva Chaitya are doing great work of conserving the uniqueness of the Valley and re-strengthening people’s relationship with the shrines that have surrounded us,” he said. “These shrines are an important part of Kathmandu’s inheritance and culture, one that needs to be preserved,” said Shahi. (Extracts from The Kathmandu Post) This is the comment form the activist at Dallu after restoration of an endangered Chiva at Dallu and the words were enough for us to continue our heritage preservation efforts. Source: https://kathmandupost.com/art-culture/2021/03/18/they-started-by-recording-stupas-now-they-are-restoring-them

What is the Motivation? Where does the inspirations come from? Well, the story told by Bharat Shahi as published in the popular daily The Kathmandu Post is an inspiration in itself. The impact the Chiva Chaitya organization has on the heritage protection and on communities has been our true motivating factor. Read on... Three years back, Bharat Shahi remembers every day being a whirlwind of confusion. He was trying to restore a worn out chiva chaitya in front of his house at Dallu Chowk and his days would always be busy. For the restoration process, he had to regularly go back and forth from the Department of Archeology’s office to the ward office and to the community’s people, trying to collect more voices for the restoration. BharatShahi participating actively(physically and mobilizing the community)  As days went by, he was exhausted and saw almost no hope that the monument he worshipped every day would be put back to its glory. He ultimately gave up entirely. “The stupa was dis...