Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay are engaging in a capacity-building program for the safeguarding of their living heritage: entitled “Patrimonio Vivo”, the project is led by UNESCO Montevideo Office and financed thanks to the resources of the Japan Funds-in-Trust.

The first workshop, to be organized during the second week of October 2012, will introduce the key concepts and mechanisms of the Convention. It will focus on the challenges of its implementation, not only on a national but on a sub-regional level: indeed, cooperation between the three countries lies at the core of the project.

The workshop will bring together communities, experts and authorities from the North-Eastern Argentinean provinces Catamarca, Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, but also delegations from Uruguay and from Paraguay, including representatives of the Museo del Barro in Asunción in Paraguay.

It will be conducted by two UNESCO-trained facilitators: Mr. Francisco López Morales, Director of the Department of World Heritage at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INHA) of Mexico, and Mrs. Mónica Lacarrieu, Director of the Cultural Anthropology Programme of the Institute of Anthropological Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA).