Radio Cadena Agramonte emisiora de Camagüey
Paris, Nov 23.- The city of Kasane, Botswana, will host from December 4 to 9 the 18th meeting of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee with 55 candidates that aspire to enrich the safeguarding lists, UNESCO highlighted today.
In a statement, the multilateral entity specified that 72 of the 181 States parties to the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage presented candidacies for a forum that will celebrate the 20th anniversary of that instrument.
The Committee, a body made up of 24 countries, will examine 45 applications for inscription on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and six for incorporation on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage requiring urgent safeguarding measures.
Likewise, it will evaluate four registration files in the Registry of Good Safeguarding Practices.
According to UNESCO, the meeting at the Cresta Mowana Resort in Kasane will also review two requests for international financial aid submitted by Paraguay and Zimbabwe.
In its document, the organization recalled that intangible cultural heritage includes oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive events, as well as knowledge, uses and techniques related to nature, the universe and crafts.
To date, 567 elements from 136 countries have been inscribed in the intangible cultural heritage of humanity, while the list for those requiring urgent protection measures has 76.
The nominations include several from Latin America and the Caribbean, such as the practices and meanings in the preparation and consumption of ceviche in Peru, the Junkanoo parade in the Bahamas and the bolero: identity, emotion and poetry made into the song of Cuba and Mexico.
The candidates for the region complete the meeting of cultures in Potosí Ch'utillos in Bolivia and the traditional construction of wooden boats in Carriacou and Petite Martinique in Granada.
As for the urgent safeguard list, Paraguay proposes the ancestral and traditional techniques for the making of the Poncho Para'í of 60 lists, from the city of Piribebuy.
For its part, the one dedicated to good practices has requests from Panama, with a program of practices to safeguard intangible cultural heritage for the Armila Sea Turtle Cultural and Ecological Festival, and Venezuela, with a program for the safeguarding of the Bandos and Parrandas of the Holy Innocents of Caucagua. (Text and photo: PL)
