About banglanatak dot com

banglanatak at WOMEX 2023

banglanatak dot com enjoys advisory status to UNESCO’s 2003 Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee and a global partner of UNWTO for promoting responsible tourism. In 2023, banglanatak dot com has also been selected as Harvard Business Review case https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/ISB339-PDF-ENG.

We work across India with a mission to foster inclusive and sustainable development using culture based approaches. We have developed a methodology called Art For Life (AFL) https://youtu.be/1IlTxKB-l2Y, which is a culture based development model focusing on poverty alleviation, social and cultural inclusion, and community-led cultural tourism development in the art and craft villages across West Bengal. AFL promotes village, artist and art together, both individually and collectively, so that each when strengthened can work towards accrediting pride, recognition and visibility to the others. Thus, adhering to AFL methodology not only improves prospects of cultural practitioners and their aesthetic pursuits by enabling safeguarding and transmission of otherwise dying heritage components, but also develops village or the in-situ space as cultural destinations, so that local community members can flourish by attaining the trickle-down benefits of local tourism development. This tripartite focus makes AFL a catalytic methodology in paving the path for inclusive tourism, which makes local communities active stakeholders in the process of tourism development. AFL model has been implemented to safeguard the ICH of West Bengal covering 50,000 rural cultural practitioners, strengthen cultural tourism in western Rajasthan covering 1500 tradition bearers, reviving the Madhubani tradition of northern Bihar and a few villages in Goa (https://youtu.be/FmBa9SB3QFo?si=fEEk2sWhLbnTazS1). The impact can be traced on multiple levels :- along with safeguarding of traditional cultural pursuits, the art and craft villages have evolved as cultural tourism destinations, a lot of global exchange & collaborations happened https://youtu.be/iPgKYKmVmas and the process has boosted pride, recognition and visibility of the art, artists and villages.

On this World Tourism Day (27 September, 2023), we launched a campaign https://youtu.be/gIhm2A5yJ5Y?si=LFzl9PDRJbJzi0kV where the Ministry of Tourism, Govt of India also joined us.

We invite you to come and experience rural West Bengal https://youtu.be/kaR9JxF3taI.

article posted by:Amitava Bhattacharya, banglanatak dot com