About

<div style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #ffffff; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 8px;"> The Problem Cultural heritage is a non-renewable resource that withers away with time. It needs to be protected. No matter how much resource we put to it, countries with a rich cultural heritage such as Greece will never be able to adequately record it, protect it and stop its man-made degradation. People deface buildings for profit, destroy or loot archaeological sites. Nature also covers, or erodes sites away. Specialists who would know how to effectively record and protect cultural heritage are too few, and their time too valuable to have them do everything.   The Opportunity Most people are, at least in theory, interested in the protection of cultural heritage. They have little time, but the aggregate of their available time and their number is a huge time bank that could be used to map tangible cultural heritage. A photo is a powerful way to record as it can be used as a testament of the condition of the heritage item or feature, and it includes a host of information about it.  Taking a photo, with a specific geographic location is sufficient to ‘save’ that item in perpetuity. A photo of a conservation building that is later defaced by its owners will be a testament of its previous condition and should help in the restoration work. A geographic location is also important in that it places in the map this important item of heritage, thus helping both with research as well as protection. Finally information on this item would be of enormous help to the visitor, to the researcher, but also for the clustering of these pieces together. For instance, if we have tens of thousands of items recorded, it would be useful to know which of those are buildings of the 19th century without having to see everything together.   The Solution By employing the powerful Ushahidi platform we have created an application that empowers local communities and visitors to lend a hand in protecting cultural heritage. By using this app, you can record, take a picture and locate on a map any tangible piece of cultural heritage you think is worthwhile. This can be as small as a piece of pottery or as large as a castle. Check the location of each of your entries to make sure it is correctly identified. Specialists can then look at your entry and correct or add information to it.   Please note Please give priority to buildings and items of cultural heritage that you think have not been fully recorded, try to have more than one picture for each item. </div>