Thirty participants from government institutions and civil society organizations as well as community representatives meet in El Salvador from 17 to 25 June to attend the first workshop on inventorying intangible cultural heritage. Following an initial theoretical session in San Salvador aimed to equip participants with essential knowledge and skills to enable them to plan and facilitate this task, the team will move to the town of Conchagua, in the department of La Union on the Pacific coast, about 200 km from the capital.
A field practice will be conducted in Conchagua which will enable participants to gain first-hand experience in inventory-making and put into practice some of the knowledge acquired during the theoretical sessions in areas such as building communication relationships with the community, obtaining their free, prior and informed consent, applying a particular method, preparing questions or generating information for an inventorying framework and testing it.
Conducted by the UNESCO-trained facilitators, María Ismenia Toledo from Venezuela and Enrique López from Mexico, these sessions are part of the regional capacity-building project funded by the generous contribution of Spain to the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in Central America which is being implemented throughout 2013. As such, this activity not only benefits from the support of the Central American Educational and Cultural Coordination (CECC/SICA) and the Secretariat of Culture of El Salvador but also welcomes the focal points of the project in Honduras and Nicaragua.