Workshop in Mozambique: towards a national strategy for the safeguarding of cultural intangible heritage

The Mozambican Institute for Socio-Cultural Research, Arquivo do Património Cultural (ARPAC), in cooperation with UNESCO organizes a workshop from 27 to 31 October 2014 in Manica and Maputo. The event will highlight how inventories of intangible cultural heritage are a key step for further safeguarding measures. It will further review the results of previous project activities to develop a national strategy for the promotion and safeguarding of Mozambique’s intangible cultural heritage. On 1 November, an extra day will be dedicated to the planning of future activities of the framework project serving Lusophone African countries, financed thanks to the generous contribution from Norway to the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund.
This workshop follows eight months of conducting a pilot inventory in the Province of Manica in Central Mozambique, the national institute for socio-cultural research,ARPAC.
Taking stock of the results of the pilot inventory, the workshop marks the end of a sequence of country-based training activities in Mozambique.
Over eighty members of the community of Chinhambudzi have collaborated with ARPAC to collect data, map, describe and categorize their intangible cultural heritage. The results will be presented at the workshop, to share experiences and inform the development of the strategy.
Mozambique is the first Portuguese speaking African (PALOP) country to have accomplished the inventory exercise, and Mozambican trainers will have the opportunity to co-facilitate workshops in other PALOP countries, namely Sao Tome and Principe where preparations are already underway for upcoming workshops.
Organized in the framework of UNESCO global capacity-building strategy, this project targeting Portuguese speaking African countries is made possible thanks to a generous voluntary contribution from Norway to the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund.