News Desk
A quiet stroll through the natural woods adjacent to Kanduvalu Mosque in HA. Utheemu now doubles as a trip back through Maldivian history.
On Saturday afternoon, President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu officially opened the freshly developed “Vaahaka Vau” history walk. The project turns a patch of island greenery into an interactive narrative trail, guiding visitors through the story of Muhammad Thakurufaanu al-Auzam (Boduthakurufaanu) and his legendary fight against Portuguese rule.
The opening formed a key highlight of this year’s National Day celebrations on the island—the ancestral home of the Utheemu dynasty.
Joining the President at the ceremony were First Lady Sajidha Mohamed, Vice President Hussain Mohamed Latheef, Majlis Speaker Abdul Raheem Abdulla, Cabinet ministers, long-serving state dignitaries, and foreign diplomats. Following the ribbon-cutting, the delegation took the inaugural walk through the trail, reading through narrative panels set up within the forest shade.
Designed to give visitors a tactile sense of the past, the walkway uses illustrated display boards and contextual markers to map out key moments of the national hero’s struggle for independence.
The project was led by the Ministry of Arts, Culture and Heritage as part of the administration’s broader push to safeguard historical landmarks and tap into heritage-based economic opportunities.
Under the umbrella initiative—officially titled the Ghaazi Bandaarain Heritage Preservation and Monetization Project—the government aims to turn Utheemu into a primary hub for cultural tourism and national history. Rather than keeping local history locked behind museum glass, the idea is to let islanders and visiting tourists experience Utheemu’s legacy right where it happened, bringing in sustainable revenue for the island along the way.
