Do you know how Belize City looked 10 years ago; how about 50 or 100 years ago? With so many facelifts over the years, so many visions and re-visions, that the city is in permanent flux - and only the drains and potholes stand as semi-permanent sentinels. That constant change is what motivated the Belize Tourism Board and NICH to collaborate on the historicization of some of these landmarks as they once stood.

It materialized into a book, which was extensively researched by the Institute of Social and Culture Research, a department within NICH. It's called "A Walk Through Old Belize"

Today, it was officially launched at the House of Culture and 7News stopped in. Here's what the Director of ISCR and the writer of the book, told us about its importance:

Nigel Encalada - Writer
"Mr. Lawrence Vernon, at least a year and a half now, began the work along with some of our ISCR staff to compile information regarding historic landmarks in Belize City. It was actually the brain child of Juliet Neal from BTB, and so what it involved was a much larger project, where we would research and identify landmarks in downtown Belize City to create a tourism trail of historical marks and so the book was the result of that. We did field work, we did archival work, we did interviews and we put together a product that could be used for tourists, tour guides, for teachers, students, and we think it's handy; people can now go on tours around Belize City and have something that they can reference, things they may not know about Belize and the landmarks that we walk pass everyday, so it's a sort of educational tool and to promote the history and heritage of Belize City in particular."

As a writer, I am proud that I was able to contribute towards another local publication, and on the history of Belize.

We want to ask many of the book stores to put it on their shelves. We want to put it, for example, in the tourist village, and many of the well known book centers in Belize, but in particular, we want to get it into schools, so that teachers can have it as a teaching resource so that the classroom can be taken out; learning can take place outside of the classroom."

The book is co-authored by NICH and BTB, who plan to release 2 more in the series called, 
"A Walk Through El Cayo", and "A Walk through Old Benque".

Channel 7