Basseterre, St. Kitts, February 25, 2021 (SKNIS): Research and Documentation Specialist and Focal point for the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Ms. Marlene Phillips, in addressing attendees at the UNESCO Awareness Campaign for Policy Makers and Capacity Building Project For Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) opening ceremony, held at the Shadwell Great House on February 24, 2021, stated that culture “is who we are, it’s a part of our identity, and we need to be able to transfer this knowledge to the next generation”.
St. Kitts and Nevis signed on to the UNESCO ICH Convention five years ago, to receive assistance to preserve the local traditions and the living expressions of our culture. St. Kitts and Nevis was the first Eastern Caribbean Island to receive funding from UNESCO ICH to aid in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage treasures, according to Ms. Phillip.
We have “over the past five years from signing the Convention to understanding what Intangible Cultural Heritage and the convention mean, receive access to ninety-nine thousand US dollars, for a two years project on safeguarding ICH,” Ms. Phillip said.
Ms. Phillip noted that as a society we have been doing quite well in preserving the intangible aspects of our culture.
“At culture, we recognize that we have been safeguarding our culture for years…as a Caribbean people, we have been keeping our traditions alive through oral history, through performance, through the art forms, through the food we eat. All these things are our Intangible Cultural Heritage”, she said.
She added that assistance from UNESCO’s ICH project has provided well-needed support in the documentation of the intangible aspects of our culture, through the use of voice recorders, as well as digital and video cameras.
Documentation becomes important because according to Marlene Phillip many of the individuals who know our traditions make up the older part of the population and may pass away before being able to transmit such relevant information.
“It is critical to meet these individuals that are keeping the culture alive, to document it…if we don’t recognize this sometimes we miss the opportunity to meet, talk to them and learn about our history and culture before they pass away”, she said, adding that the information collected from the interviews with the elderly about our traditions will help in cultural preservation and transmission “to help the young to be aware of our culture by leaving something behind through the use of a website”.
]]>Basseterre, St. Kitts, February 25, 2021 (SKNIS): Minister of Culture, the Honourable Jonel Powell, said that through the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) Project, culture in St. Kitts and Nevis will transcend generations.
Minister Powell’s comments come during Phase Four SKN ICH Awareness Campaign—Seminar for Policy Makers and Community ICH Stakeholders St. Kitts and Nevis UNESCO Capacity Building Project entitled “Strengthening Inventory Preparation Capacity for Implementing 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in St. Kitts and Nevis” held on Wednesday 24th February 2021 at the Shadwell Great House under
According to the Text of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, intangible cultural heritage’ means “the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artifacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage.”
“This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity,” the text stated.
Minister Powell noted that throughout the Federation, there is evidence of mingling and intertwining of various cultures and traditions not only with our Caribbean neighbours like Guyana, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica but from international cultures like the Chinese and the Indians.
“These non-nationals practice their culture, adhere to their principles and traditions and all aspects of their living,” he said. “In this paradigm, it becomes critically important for us to not only be aware of our own culture and heritage, but for us to continue to live it, practice it, preserve it, and indeed pass it down from generation to generation.”
He added, “If we do not do this, our cultural identity and uniqueness would not only be diluted, but it would gradually become obsolete.”
The Minister said that as fragile as intangible cultural heritage is in the face of growing Globalization it is an important factor in maintaining cultural diversity.
The Minister of Culture said that an understanding of the ICH in different communities across the Federation helps with intercultural dialogue and encourages mutual respect for other ways of life and living.
“That is why the last two years or so we have had teams, some 14 of them, going out into the communities to do research and to interview you the man of Phillip’s Village, the woman in Butler’s, to gain much insight,” he said.
In 2018, St. Kitts and Nevis was the first country in the English Speaking CARICOM to have successfully applied for the project.
Minister Powell has pledged the Federal Government’s support to the continuity and longevity of the Secretariat that has been established within the Department of Culture to carry out the project.
]]>Basseterre, St. Kitts, February 24th, 2021 (ZIZ News) The Department of Culture is moving ahead with efforts to preserve practices and traditions that make up the culture of the federation through its intangible cultural heritage project.
According to Lead Focal Point for the project in St. Kitts Marlene Phillips, Intangible Culture is made up of processes, procedures and the way things are done, such as cooking traditional foods, performing traditional folk arts.
For more than a year, media teams have been working with persons who engage in these practices to record them for posterity to ensure the traditions don’t die.
An information session was held on Wednesday morning to show what has been collected so far and Mrs Phillip explained that their efforts require significant input from the community.
In his feature address Minister of Culture, the Hon. Jonel Powell, reinforced Mrs Phillips point noting that it was important to reach out to the communities that practice these traditions, which serve to strengthen our national identity.
The Seminar is part of a 2 year project to safeguard ICH in St. Kitts and Nevis funded by UNESCO.
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Basseterre, St. Kitts, January 26, 2021 (SKNIS): The Department of Culture in St. Kitts and Nevis will explore additional strategies to preserve and promote the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) of the federation when it meets with research and documentation teams on Wednesday, January 27, 2021.
Intangible cultural heritage is described as the practice, representation, expression, knowledge, or skill considered to be a part of a country’s cultural heritage. Local examples of ICH include the story of the Mansion Bull, the dance and chants of the Masquerades, the method of making mauby, and more.
Marlene Phillips, Research and Documentation Specialist in the Department of Culture is spearheading the activities to safeguard ICH. She noted that an ICH project was launched in April 2019. Seven teams were trained in November 2019, and dispatched in July 2020 to various communities to research, identify, and digitally document aspects of ICH. The teams comprised a coordinator, researcher, interviewer, and videographer/photographer. Documentation was done via audio and video recordings as well as photography.
The team members will meet with Ms. Phillips and others involved with the project on Wednesday at the Players Dining Room at the Warner Park Cricket Stadium. They will share their experiences out in the field and recommendations on the way forward.
“We want suggestions on how to improve the process. We hope that the meeting will inform us where more training is necessary and we’ll also be discussing the future of the Secretariat,” Ms. Phillip stated.
The participants who will attend the meeting will also discuss ideas to share their findings with the public during a seminar slated for February 2021.
Ms. Phillips said that the ICH project goes to the heart of what makes St. Kitts and Nevis and its people unique.
“The intangible part of our lives is our identity,” she stated. “It shapes the society, who the people are. … If the elders or the people in the community, who are keeping it (ICH) alive decide to stop, then your culture is lost. So to safeguard, we need to identify what these beloved traditions are, see if they are in danger of becoming extinct, and discuss with the tradition bearers how we can pass it on to the next generation by involving them in the whole process.”
]]>Basseterre, St. Kitts, January 25 2021 (ZIZ News) The information received as part of the Department of Culture’s Intangible Cultural Heritage Pilot Research Study, will be discussed at a meeting later this week.
According to Lead Focal Point for Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) for UNESCO Marlene Phillips, intangible cultural heritage is the method of doing something. The categories include performing arts, traditional herbs (medicine), and storytelling.
She said Intangible Cultural Heritage is of great significance as it shapes the society.
“The intangible part of our lives is our identity, if you think about your own family and how you were raised and the food your parents prepared for you, these are things that bring back memories and they are part of your tradition and hopefully you will pass them on to your children,” she said. “It is very important and the ICH secretariat, is going to be working on things to safeguard these intangible elements and that’s why we did the training, because we need the people in the community, to safeguard; it’s not us at the department of agriculture. The only reason the art forms are around is because there are people in the community that love performing; love making the mauby; making the cassava bread; dancing masquerade.”
The ICH Pilot project was made up of 7 research teams, each consisting of a coordinator, interviewer/ researcher and a media person.
Miss Phillips gave the specifics of the project.
“We did a pilot study to conduct some research in St. Kitts and Nevis to see what elements we could discover in a short period of time and those were some of them,” she noted.
“As part of the project we had to train people from the community on how to do the interviews, putting together the questions, operating a video camera or an audio recorder, researching who they are going to talk to and about what, taking digital photographs of the person they are interviewing and the element itself and so we have trained these people in ST. Kitts and in Nevis, they have done the research.”
The meeting of the participants for the Intangible Cultural Heritage Pilot project will take place on Wednesday at Warner Park.
Ms. Phillips said the meeting will serve to gain feedback on what can be done to improve the process.
“The meeting we are having tomorrow is sort of a continuation of ICH. We are going to get feedback on what the actual experience was like because some of them held a camera for the first time and we want to improve the process.”
She said,” The reason why we are doing this is because we actually already have established an ICH Secretariat in St. Kitts Department of Culture so these who we’ve trained with this skillset, we are going to continue working with them in the future, to go out into the community and to research more ICH elements that we want to safeguard.”
She said the meeting will serve as a fact finding mission to outline solutions to enhance the project, and to find out where more training is necessary. The future of the secretariat as well as ideas for a public seminar next month will also be discussed.
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