Resumen:

Implemented by the Lesotho National Commission for UNESCO in cooperation with the Department of Culture, the project aimed to contribute to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in Lesotho and to sensitize relevant stakeholders thereon. The project is an outcome of similar activities conducted in other districts, with the support of UNESCO and the World Bank, which motivated the community elders of Thaba-Bosiu to seek the assistance of the Department of Culture of the Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Culture to identify and document intangible cultural heritage elements in need of urgent safeguarding. The project involved activities in nine selected villages of Thaba-Bosiu, in the country’s capital district and ranged from; i) a stakeholders meeting to raise awareness among relevant governmental ministries and departments, civil society, culture associations and communities about effective measures and mechanisms for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage; ii) a capacity-building workshop on community-based inventorying for youth, practitioners and officials from the Department of Culture; iii) an inventorying exercise of intangible cultural heritage elements across the nine villages; to iv) the production of a document compiling the results of the inventory exercises in Thaba-Bosiu. The results accomplished within the framework of the project include; fifteen trained youth from nine communities on the UNESCO approved methodology of documenting intangible cultural heritage, some 24 intangible cultural heritage elements inventoried and an updated National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Lesotho.