Secrets of straw weaving
Telling on selected ICH
February 16, 2023
Safeguarding straw weaving techniques in the Turiisk community.
Teaching and learning with living heritage in Ukraine.
According to masters, children’s interest in straw weaving has been rapidly fading over the past few years. To revive the interest in this traditional practice, in particular among children and young people, masters of straw weaving and folk floristry Myroslava Hlowatska and Valentyna Yakymovych from the “Polissia gold” studio teamed up with the teachers of the Solovych Lyceum of the Turiisk community in the Volyn region and developed an awareness raising programme integrating elements of straw weaving in lessons plans within the existing curriculum.
To introduce straw and straw weaving techniques in their classes, mathematics teachers used straw to examine the dependence of triangle sides, to learn fractions with pyramids (in junior grades) or regular polyhedrons (in senior grades). The lyceum is also planning to organize an excursion to surrounding villages to collect raw materials and readymade artifacts with their students.
The project “Teaching and learning with living heritage in Ukraine” is carried out by the non-governmental organization Development Center “Democracy through the Culture”, accredited under the UNESCO 2003 Convention, in close cooperation with the Living Heritage Entity and the support of the UNESCO Heritage Emergency Fund.
In the first phase, 15 schools across Ukraine (including 10 UNESCO Associated schools) will pilot test the proposed methodology integrating living heritage elements in core subjects, such as mathematics, physics or literature. The project is based on a methodology elaborated within a joint UNESCO/EU project in 2020–2021