Welcome to the Urumaya Conservation Foundation newsroom!

We’ll be posting regular updates here and on our social sites (Instagram and Facebook) about how our projects are progressing, opportunities for heritage volunteers to come and join us, and links to interesting articles and events.

We’d love for you to be part of the journey and to keep up to date with our news and activities – so please check in regularly to see what we’re up to!

august 2019

This month, the Urumaya Conservation Foundation began preliminary work at Galle Fort assisting the Galle Heritage Foundation in undertaking a number of site inspections.

These included 500-year old buildings from the old Dutch period as well as sites dating from the more modern Art Deco period (1915-1960s), and lots of lovely features including old Dutch stables, lattice work and street-front colonnades.

At one of the site inspections, we were lucky enough to speak to a family who are one of the last local families still to live within the Galle Fort complex. Chatting to them beneath the impressive 500-year old Dutch period fanlight that proudly sits above their front doorway, they shared the discomfort they feel when thinking about the need to conserve buildings in the area and the effect that conservation works have on the ‘living heritage’ of the Fort.

This is, of course, a really important point for us, and strikes at the very heart of heritage conservation strategy and development projects being undertaken all around the world.

What should be conserved? How much should be conserved? When should it be conserved…? Is there a point where we stop conserving the remnants of the past and move aside for modernity…?

What you do think?