Living Heritage as a Source for Inspiration and Identity

On December 9, 2022, the second workshop within the frames of UNESCO project “Teach and learning with the living heritage” was carried out for Ukrainian schools by the international expert, Global network facilitator, Vanessa Achilles. The project is supported by the Heritage Emergency Fund and implemented in Ukraine by the accredited NGO, Development Centre “Democracy through Culture”.

14 Ukrainian schools from Kyiv, Kyiv region, Odesa, Lviv, Vinnytsia and Dnipro took part in the second workshop desiring to become pilot schools for the project. Teachers from these schools shared their ideas on bringing the living heritage to curriculum and outclass activities and their experience on realizing similar initiatives. Among discussed ICH elements were beekeeping (wild bees), Carpathian embroidery, and clay toys of Black Sea region.

At the workshop, participants learnt and discussed successive steps for bringing living heritage to school, particularly:

• How to design lesson plan and teach
• How and why to document and share experience
• How to evaluate and assess results

Vanessa Achilles stressed on the importance to work with community members, resource persons and families as advisers and assistants. She reminded that the living heritage is not only events and hand-made objects but feelings from heart. It is a source of inspiration and identity.

The next online workshop is planned for 22 December 2022 and will be conducted by the project team: coordinator, Valentyna Demian, experts, Iryna Kats and Oleksandr Butsenko. Ukrainian schools will shape their teams for pilot projects and design schedules.

Prepared by the project information manager, Yulia Semenova