Dear All,

It is our pleasure to welcome you to this online blog dedicated to the involvement of non-governmental organizations and civil society in topics related with the intangible cultural heritage.

To this purpose in addition we are also in progress of setting up a discussion forum.

The aim of this is to provide with information on these issues and to liase interested people, in order to stimulate exchange of information and opinions and views about intangible cultural heritage.

As many know, the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage represents an important achievement concerning the recognition and advancement of cultural rights. Moreover, it has involved State Parties undersigning it in a consistent exercise towards the identification and study of their intangible cultural heritage.

The Convention recognizes and stresses also the important role of the communities, groups and, where appropriate, individuals concerned, in such effort.

The possibility of exchanging experience and knowledge and the comparison with best practices, can help in exploring ways to be adopted or re-tailored to each specific context and help in avoiding mistakes.

Therefore, we hope this space will contribute to the achievement of the recognition of such important part of the cultural heritage which , if not appropriately perceived, may risk to be underestimated or be not identified entirely in its dimension which stands directly with the communities, groups and individuals with whom is its ownership and for whom such inheritance constitutes the legacy through time, from the past to the future throught the present.