Less than a year after hosting a foundational workshop on the implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage at the national level and the development of a plan of action to this effect, Jamaica is mobilising community practitioners and representatives of its governmental and non-governmental organisations to push forward with the inventorying of its living heritage.

Organized by the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica/Jamaica Memory Bank in collaboration with the Jamaica National Commission for UNESCO and the UNESCO Kingston Cluster Office for the Caribbean, a national workshop on community-based inventorying of intangible cultural heritage will take place in Kingston from 4 to 13 September 2013.

A significant step in the safeguarding of living heritage in Jamaica, the workshop will focus on community participation in the identification and inventorying of intangible cultural heritage, data collection, organization and management, and hands-on experience in preparing field work. The workshop along with the field exercise will set the stage for a pilot inventory activity to follow in proceeding months.

Funded by the Government of Japan, the workshop is part of a sub-regional project being implemented in Belize, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago within the context of UNESCO’s global strategy on capacity building to safeguard intangible cultural heritage. It will be facilitated by UNESCO trained experts Dr. Harriet Deacon and Dr. Kris Rampersad.