The Yangon Heritage Trust ( my, ရန်ကုန်အမွေအနှစ် ထိန်းသိမ်းစောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအဖွဲ့; abbreviated YHT) is a

non-governmental organisation A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...

founded by

Thant Myint-U Thant Myint-U ( my, သန့်မြင့်ဦး ; born 31 January 1966) is an American-born Burmese historian, writer, grandson of former United Nations Secretary-General U Thant, former UN official, and former special adviser to the p ...

to conserve historic buildings in

Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

(formerly Rangoon), the former capital of

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

. Yangon has Asia's largest collection of colonial-era buildings. The Trust has proposed to designate small zones within the city centre (particularly in Downtown Yangon) as heritage areas and envisions a joint public-private collaboration whereby private investors restore heritage buildings for commercial use while maintaining the character of the areas. The Trust also advocates a conservation plan led by the

private sector The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The ...

. In June 2013,

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...

announced a partnership with the Trust to install 200 LED-lit blue plaques to highlight key cultural heritage sites in the city. There are around 15,000 buildings in Yangon that the Trust wants preserved, and as of 2020 it has helped with 350 conservation projects.

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See also