BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Friday 26th February 2021) – Well-knownResearch and Documentation Specialist at the Department of Culture Marlene Phillips is calling on citizens and residents not to take for granted the intangible cultural heritage of St.Kitts and Nevis such as food preparation and folklore art forms as she touched on the ongoing activities geared towards preserving such aspects to be passed onto future generations.
She did do while speaking at the launch of “Phase Four SKN ICH Awareness Campaign- Seminar for Policy Makers and Community ICH Stakeholders St. Kitts and Nevis (SKN) UNESCO Capacity Building Project entitled, “Strengthening Inventory Preparation Capacity for Implementing 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in St. Kitts and Nevis” which was held at Shadwell Great House located in Shadwell, Basseterre on Wednesday 24th February 2021, organised by the St. Kitts Department of Culture.
The event was held under the theme: “SAFEGUARDING ST. KITTS AND NEVIS INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGE TREASURES”.
Phillips said the Department has been around for twenty-six (26) years whilst noting that such “ is a long time for a department to be around dealing with a very huge responsibility which is the culture of the people.”
“ ICH has come along. In 2003 UNESCO’s Convention Of Intangible Culture history and heritage and St.Kitts and Nevis became party to that only a few years ago and I must say that over the past five years from signing the convention to understanding/overstanding what intangible heritage and convention means to receiving an access of US$99,000 for a two year’s project on safeguarding ICH, St.Kitts and Nevis I think is doing quite well in the English speaking Caribbean to receive funding from the UNESCO ICH Fund and we very proud of that…,” she highlighted.
Phillips went on to say: “It’s been a real wonderful experience because in our culture, we would recognize that we have been safeguarding for years…with the inception of the Department of Culture, we as a Caribbean people, we have been keeping our traditions alive through oral history, through performance, through dance, through the art forms, through the food that we eat; all these are intangible culture heritage. Traditions in the cultures that we keep alive, and when I say we, it’s people in the community who keep it alive. It’s not St.Kitts Department of Culture or Nevis (Cultural) foundation, we assist and give support to the people in the community to keep it going…”
“That’s what basically ICH is , it’s the intangible part…we always see built heritage sites but we don’t really think about the intangible part of our culture; we take it for but it’s the food that we eat every day, it’s the food that our parents prepared for us from the culture in the island that we grew up in so we’re pleased with this project to build capacity to continue safeguarding it and over the two years, we have learnt about ICH and we’ve brought an awareness about, we’ve tried to share with the public through various seminars that we’ve had…”
Phillip Talked about the work put in saying: “We’ve been trying to build capacity… by training people in the community to help us do the documentation process. We’ve been able through the projects to train people in the community how to conduct interviews, how to do oral documentation with audio recorders to using a digital or video camera to document, and that’s actually the first step because what we’ve found a lot of our traditional holders tend to be mature in age and if we don’t recognize this sometimes we miss that opportunity to talk to them to learn about our own history and culture before they pass away so what is critical for us is to meet these individuals who are keeping history and heritage alive, to document it and from there have a conversation with people in the community about how do you want to safeguard it and how do you want to protect it and why is that important-it’s who we are. It’s a part of our identity.”
Additionally, she outlined the importance of keeping history and heritage alive.
“…we need to be able to transfer this knowledge to the next generation whether you transfer it to your children or teachers educate children that come to school or our young adults we get them involved in it so that they feel a part of it. Sometimes, teenagers sometimes grow away from our traditions and there is a lot of outside influences so this is why it is important and when document the intangible cultural heritage it’s preserved and it’s there for anyone else who wants to come after that tradition bearer has passed on and revive it or for the next generation to learn…for example what are the steps that The Actors did, or the Mocko-jumbie or the Masquerade or how is it the National Dish is made. How are they going to learn unless we leave something behind for them to research, for them to see?”