Events and meetings on intangible cultural heritage (co-)organized by UNESCO

The side event shared opportunities and challenges related to safeguarding indigenous heritage and languages in education programmes in the context of the priority on ‘Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in formal and non-formal education’.

Within the framework of the project “Strengthening national capacities for safeguarding Palestinian intangible cultural heritage”, the UNESCO Ramallah Office holds the workshop on the community-based inventorying thanks to the generous support from the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism. The workshop will cover an introduction to community-based inventorying; an inventorying framework; issues of ethics and responsibilities; information generation methods and techniques; and putting community-based inventorying into practice. This training will target ICH practitioners, youth, NGOs and CBOs, universities, and local MoC staff. The workshop will include around 20 participants.

The UNESCO Ramallah Office holds the workshop on the implementation of the 2003 Convention thanks to the generous support from the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism within the framework of the project “Strengthening national capacities for safeguarding Palestinian intangible cultural heritage”. The workshop will bring together around 20 participants, including staff members from concerned line ministries and key civil society actors (practitioners, NGOs, universities, experts). Two international facilitators from UNESCO‘s global network of facilitators will deliver the training on the basis of the material developed by UNESCO.

From 4 to 8 November 2019, the Living Heritage Entity is organizing “Training of trainers workshop on intangible cultural heritage to strengthen the facilitators network in the Arab States” Oujda, Morocco, within the framework of the 2003 Convention’s global capacity-building programme. The workshop is organized by with the generous support of the Agence de l’Oriental and in close collaboration with the UNESCO Rabat Office.
Bringing together more than 20 intangible cultural heritage specialists, the workshop intends to strengthen and expand the Arab States chapter of the facilitators’ network to respond to the growing demand for capacity building in the field of intangible cultural heritage in the region.

In January 2019, UNESCO and the European Union launched a new project to strengthen the connections between young people, cultural heritage and education. The project proposes an innovative approach to education by inviting teachers and learners to explore their living heritage and learn not only about it but also with and through it. In close collaboration with the UNESCO Associated Schools in the European Union (ASPnet members), UNESCO will carry out a series of activities to assist schools in identifying and mapping the living heritage present in the school community.

In this context, UNESCO will organize a workshop to explore the use of intangible cultural heritage in school-based learning from 26 to 29 October, in Vienna, Austria. Ten school teams formed by one teacher and one learner – from 11 to 18 years old – will be selected to take part in this pilot edition. During three days, they will learn more about the safeguarding of their living heritage and will develop small innovative projects integrating living heritage within the existing curricula or in extracurricular activities. Following the workshop, the school teams will be invited to implement the pilot projects in their schools with the assistance of UNESCO trained facilitators. In February 2020, the participants will come together again to share the lessons learned from their pilot projects and to formulate recommendations for the guidance materials. A short video documenting the whole pilot project is also foreseen.

Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in formal and non-formal education

The meeting was organized within the framework of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and the priority on ‘Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in formal and non-formal education’. It included field office colleagues from both the Education and Culture Sectors as well as consultants who have been working on concrete country and/or sub-regional level initiatives related to integrating intangible cultural heritage in education.

The main objectives of the meeting were to:

• Take stock of progress made over the biennium on implementing the new priority on ‘Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in formal and non-formal education’;
• Share lessons learned and promising practices thus far; and
• Discuss and define areas of possible continued and future collaboration, in particular for the 40 C/5 workplans.

The Living Heritage Entity is organizing the workshop in close collaboration with the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe (Venice) and the Regional Centre for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in South-Eastern Europe (Sofia), which is generously hosting the training in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, from 1 to 3 October 2019.

The workshop will focus on the theme of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage and sustainable development with reference to the dedicated chapter of the Operational Directives on this topic and in light of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It will be structured as follows:

• Introduction of the topic of living heritage and sustainable development/UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
  
• Presentation of the ‘ICH and sustainable development toolbox’ - a set of new materials demonstrating the relationships between safeguarding intangible cultural heritage and sustainable development, developed under the global capacity-building programme;
  
• Discussion of case studies and exchange experiences in implementing projects, teaching, facilitating and advising on policies and strategies related to ICH and stainable development in Europe.
  

The workshop will also be an occasion to share the information on the latest developments in the life of the 2003 Convention.

Within the framework of the project “Strengthening national capacities for safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage in Egypt for sustainable development”, generously funded by Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority, UNESCO Office in Cairo organizes the training on preparation of nomination files and international assistance requests. This activity will consist of a 5 day workshop on the preparation of nominations files, including national and multinational files for the Representative List, and national files for the Urgent Safeguarding List, and the identification of ICH elements for future nominations. Another important focus of this workshop will be on the elaboration of international assistance requests.

The 7th annual meeting of the category 2 centres active in the field of intangible cultural heritage will be held from 2 to 3 September 2019 in Algiers, Algeria. Hosted by the Regional Centre for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Africa (CRESPIAF) under the auspices of UNESCO, the meeting will follow up on the six previous annual meetings.

Working documents

Presentations

Reference documents

For further information:

• Category 2 centres under the auspices of UNESCO

A sub-regional meeting for ICH safeguarding in Northeast Asia was held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia from 28 to 29 August 2018 on ‘ICH in Education: Towards Joint Collaboration for Promoting ICH in Formal and Non-Formal Education’.

The meeting was co-organized by the International Information and Networking Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific region under the auspices of UNESCO (ICHCAP) and the UNESCO Beijing Office to explore the relationship between the safeguarding of ICH and education. Participants discussed conceptual issues and concrete examples of how ICH safeguarding can be integrated in formal and non-formal education. Special attention was paid to the role of governments, communities, schools and actors from non-formal education programmes with the aim of creating a sustainable network to exchange practices concerning ICH safeguarding and education, as well as to promote sub-regional collaboration.

Participants included government officials, representatives of National Commissions for UNESCO, coordinators and teachers from the UNESCO Associated School Project network (ASPnet) and representatives of civil society from five Northeast Asian countries (China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Japan, Mongolia and the Republic of Korea). The UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Section, UNESCO Bangkok Office, International Training Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO (CRIHAP) and the International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO (IRCI) also participated in the meeting.

The meeting was hosted by the National Commission of Mongolia for UNESCO with the support of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Sports of Mongolia.