Year of creation: 1993
Budget: U.S.$36300
Domain(s):

- oral traditions and expressions
- social practices, rituals and festive events
- knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe
- traditional craftsmanship
- other
- patrimonio cultural gastronomía tradicional

Safeguarding measures:

- identification, documentation, research (including inventory-making)
- preservation, protection
- promotion, enhancement
- transmission, (non-)formal education
- revitalization
- desarrollo de instrumentos metodológicos para el registro y elaboración de inventarios aplicación de sistemas de información geográfica al inventario y promoción del patrimonio cultural

Main countries where active:

Mexico

Objectives:
-To create a collection of documents, specialized in popular arts, crafts and traditional cuisine, which includes a library, archive, serial publication fund and photo library, to be used mainly by researchers, popular artists, artisans and culture promoters.
-To develop research intruments, such as: thesaurus, cartographies and specialized bibliographies, among other.
-To document current technology used in the craftwork production processes and its problems.
-To carry out research in the field of popular arts and crafts in collaboration with educational, promotion and cultural institutions.
-To support rescue and safeguarding actions and the study of cultural processes related
with popular arts, crafts and traditional cuisine.
-To promote the best expressions of popular arts and crafts by carrying out and
supporting contests and exhibitions.
-To participate in the registry and cataloguing of craftwork and traditional cuisine
expressions.
-To participate in the promotion, registry, documentation and preservation projects of
popular arts, craftwork and traditional cuisine.
Activities:
-Gives consultation services on its library, archive, photo library and serial publication funds.
-Carries out research in the field of cultural heritage with special emphasis on popular arts and crafts, traditional cuisine and cultural tourism.
-Develops research instruments, such as: thesaurus, specialized bibliographies and handicraft cartographies.
-Participates, together with public institutions and civil organizations, in the promotion, preservation and protection of the cultural heritage with special emphasis on popular arts, crafts and traditional cuisine.
-Gives workshops for social organizations at a community level to increase registry, protection and promotion of the cultural heritage.
-Participates in national and state competitions of popular arts and crafts to recognize masters and their works.
-Participates in the Specialist Committee, working on the development of the methodology and the survey for the inventory of intangible cultural heritage of Mexico.
- Organizes and participates in meetings, congresses and round tables in which reflect on Mexican and Latin American cultural heritage.
Cooperation:
-It gives workshops on recognition, evaluation and registry for the communities to develop projects for strengthening, conservation and promotion of intangible cultural heritage.
-It is presently developing the digital atlas of popular Mexican art with the collaboration of artisans and popular artists.
-It participates in the Specialist Committee for the development of the methodology and the survey for the inventory of the intangible cultural heritage of Mexico, in which the communities will have a predominant role.

Year of creation: 1999
Budget: U.S.$250000
Domain(s):

- oral traditions and expressions
- social practices, rituals and festive events
- knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe
- traditional craftsmanship
- sistemas alimentarios, ecogastronomia, alimentación y arte, ciencias de la alimentación

Safeguarding measures:

- identification, documentation, research (including inventory-making)
- preservation, protection
- promotion, enhancement
- transmission, (non-)formal education
- Creacion de redes regionales e internacionales para el rescate de las cocinas indígenas

Main countries where active:

Argentina, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)

Objectives:
Faciliter la sauvegarde des racines identitaires, des connaissances et des savoirs traditionnels autour d´une gastronomie millénaire appuyée sur une riche biodiversité dont la continuité historique peut être mise en péril par la mondialisation, la dégradation écologique et les transformations sociales portant atteinte à ces modèles culturels et agricoles.
Le Conservatoire suit aussi de près les expressions novatrices respectueuses du tronc culinaire commun qui assurent la continuité d´une gastronomie à forte identité. A cet effet, il stimule la recherche académique et travaille avec les structures d´enseignement dans la formulation des programmes pédagogiques recouvrant les disciplines liées aux systèmes alimentaires et aux cuisines traditionnelles.
Activities:
Identification des communautés, groupes et praticiens des métiers liés aux cultures alimentaires et gastronomiques autochtones traditionnelles. Organisation des Rencontres et Séminaires des spécialistes. Recherche académique et enseignement. Assistance technique aux Administrations. Projets pilotes. Promotion et diffusion des informations relatives au Patrimoine Gastronomique traditionnel, y compris site web en construction.
Cooperation:
Identification et rencontres des cuisinières indigènes, des producteurs agricoles autochtones, des artisans traditionnels liés aux arts de la table, etc. Notre travail et collaboration avec la communauté est bien documenté avec le projet de récuperation de la cuisine indigène de Michoacán depuis 2004. Ce projet se développe en association avec les femmes et a pour but de préserver les traditions culinaires dans toute la région.
Les actions principales de ce projet, au-delà des importantes manifestations gastronomiques où elles transmettent leur savoir à de nombreuses professionnelles de la cuisine provenant de tout le pays et de l'étranger, consistent en l'organisation d'ateliers de formation dans le domaine de la manipulation hygienique des aliments et d'autres connaissances pour la gestion de leurs petites entreprises d'alimentation. Ces
activités se réalisent grâce à l'initiative des femmes cuisinières de l'Etat de Michoacán.

Year of creation: 2008
Domain(s):

- social practices, rituals and festive events
- knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe

Safeguarding measures:

- identification, documentation, research (including inventory-making)
- preservation, protection
- promotion, enhancement
- revitalization
- Fostering new economic activities for self-funding of intangible heritage manifestations.

Main countries where active:

Guatemala, Mexico

Objectives:
Our objectives are:
To promote the safeguarding of the cultural heritage, mainly intangible heritage, in terms of language, cultural practices and cultural knowledge, and the museums which express de cultural diversity of México.
To work with communities to promote their development, empower their social cohesion, and their capabilities to establish a dialogue in a context of cultural diversity. Work is carried out with local (municipio) cultural practitioners and stakeholders.
To valorize intangible cultural heritage through registering, disseminating its expressions, and working with people working in the local arts and cultural rituals, and festivities and their relation to the environment. Also including Mexican migrants in valorizing, funding and promoting such local intangible heritage.

Activities:
The Association has been recently formalized but has been working for the past sixyears in three connected areas:
1. we have partnered with local people to register their rituals, including the Day of the Dead ritual and many festivities, as well as forming local committees to safeguard their intangible heritage.
2. through activities in the villages, including schools, we have held exhibits and meeting to help them develop local and migrant networks to fund activities and sustain traditional forms of their cultural celebrations.
3. we have also worked for several years with legislators in several states in Mexico, helping to develop laws on culture that incorporate the principles of the 2003 Convention for Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage and the 2005 Convention for Diversity, and we have worked very much with the difution and promotion of it´s principles.
4. we are working at present in setting up criteria and methodology to document and classify intangible cultural expressions as well as organizational procedures to help sustain and revitalize such expressions.

Cooperation:
As an example, for the last four years we have worked in a region which has kept much of its indigenous and local heritage. Several young people from the villages were trained to be photographers in digital photos and their photos were exhibited in the villages and given to the persons who were photographed. Activities with them are continuing in order to create an archive of materials which they keep and which can show the whole range of rituals, including the Day of the Dead, festivals, including carnivals, social practices such as barter in the markets, and their views on how deforestion and diminished water supplies are affecting their ritual and festive life. Some 25 meetings have been organized with students and researchers to develop new methods to register and understand intangible cultural expressions and the challenges they face in a rapidly changing economic and social context. Mexican migrants have also been contacted to encourage their involvement with safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage in their home towns. Many meetings have also been held with state legislators to encourage that laws related to the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage be passed and appropriate cultural policies at local level be established.

Year of creation: 2007
Budget: U.S.$500000
Domain(s):

- oral traditions and expressions
- performing arts
- social practices, rituals and festive events
- knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe
- traditional craftsmanship
- other
- Through a collaboartive web site we´re doing an extensive inventory of those activities or items that belong to each domain and the individuals related to them as well, for thus our field of work contains the 5 main domains of the Convention. EPCI AC, realiza acciones de registro, salvaguarda y difusión para cada ámbito incluido en la Convención de 2003.

Safeguarding measures:

- identification, documentation, research (including inventory-making)
- preservation, protection
- promotion, enhancement
- transmission, (non-)formal education
- revitalization
- other
- Through collaboartive web site´s tools, people from all the world can help us to deliver an extensive inventory of the intangible cultural heritage, this is a powerfull tool to promote and transmit the ICH, and revitalize it as well 90055 - La Enciclopedia del Patrimonio Cultural Inmaterial, A. C. A través de nuestro programa Enlaces Culturales, se investiga, identifica, promueve y transmite el Patrimonio Cultural Inmaterial.

Objectives:
To research, safeguard and promote the group of expressions and knowledge that integrate the Natural, Material and Immaterial Cultural Heritage of Mexico and the world. Understanding such as physical spaces, geographical, natural, and historical of cultural relevance; the knowledge, customs, representations, expressions, and techniques such as: native languages, traditional games, festivities, dances, music, and scenic expressions representatives of the local culture, handcrafts, designs, and unique products or those due to their worth shall be considered part of the Cultural Heritage that distinguishes each country. Some of our specific objectives are:
a) To foster, promote, develop, direct, motivate, manage, provide help, and apply schemes oriented to research, promote, conserve, protect, spreading out, and safeguard the Material, Immaterial and Natural Cultural Heritage of Mexico and the world.
b) To promote, manage and develop the Encyclopedia of Immaterial Cultural Heritage, as a media of information, documentation and spreading out of the group of customs, expressions, representations, knowledge, and techniques, inasmuch as natural and material geographical spaces wherein is manifested and preserved this heritage.
c) To promote and develop studies, projects, monitoring, census, and grants that shall benefit to the executors, specialists, and keepers of the group of customs, expressions, representations, knowledge, and techniques that integrate the Immaterial Cultural Heritage of the World.
e) To collaborate in actions of surveillance and control before the competent authorities that by any reason shall be involved in the norm of the activities inherent to the research, preservation, handling, promotion, and safeguarding of the Natural and Cultural Immaterial and Material Heritage of the world.
f) To provide services in terms of national and international technical consulting related to preserve, safeguard, and spreading out of the the Natural and Cultural Immaterial and Material Heritage
g) To create, develop, and spread out of publishing, studies, courses, seminars, assessments, expositions, study plans, and training programs, and specialized training in the Natural and Cultural Immaterial and Material Heritage
i) To get affiliated or grouped to other organisms and institutions national and international
Cooperation:
- Indigenous groups who we work with in Mexico are: Mixtecos and Zapotecos from Oaxaca;
- Purhépechas from Michoacán; Raramuris from Chihuahua; Tachiuines from Veracruz; ñah ñuh from Hidalgo; Mayas from Yucatan; and Nahuas from Guerrero, Morelos; Puebla and Mexico City.
- As well as non indigenous groups that have safeguard expressions, knoledges an techniques that can be considered in any domain of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
- As an example in 1996 we make the first non indigenous team of traditional sport from the Purhepecha ball game, at that time there were only 4 active teams in Michoacan state, we work in Mexico City to conform a mixed team (women and men), giving women for the first time in the history of the game, the opportunity to participate, nowadays there are there are 26 teams, 12 of them are women teams. We have make an extensive work in revitalizing traditional sports and games with youngsters from indigenous and non indigenous communities; in schools and organizing tournaments. Our background in this field as non formally organized group, considers
participating in the World Festival of Traditional Sports and Games. as players in Bangkok 1996, Thailand, and Hannover 2000, Germany; and as promoters and reserachers in Busan 2008, Korea
As consultants to the ministry of education in 2003, we incorporated the teaching and practice of three traditional sports and games in the official curricula of middle school. And in 2008, we incorporated 18 traditional sports and games in the official curricula for K12 schools, wich is official in over 80,000 schools country wide.
We have formal relations with the International Elder Council, and with universities in several countries. And we have develop a Cultural and Tourism advisory branch, for the benefit and promotion of festivities and other non ritual expresions that due to the lack of experience will mostly fail or leave the organizers hopeless for the next event.