Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport Olivia “Babsy” Grange will tomorrow begin to chair the virtual staging of the 15th Session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The session runs from December 14 through 19 and is being hosted by UNSESCO, Paris.

The committee comprises a group of 24 countries, whose core functions are to promote the objectives of the conventions, provide guidance on best practices and make recommendations on the measures for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage. The committee also examines the requests submitted by the states parties for the inscription of intangible heritage on the list as well as proposals for programmes and projects.

Jamaica was elected as a member of the committee in 2018 and will serve until 2022.

Grange was elected as the chair of the 15th committee at its meeting held in Bogota, Colombia, in December 2019.

Grange has the distinction of being the fourth woman selected to chair the committee, which first met in November 2006.

During the meeting, the debates will be transmitted by webcast in their original language as well as their interpretation into English and French in real time from 7:30 am to 10:30 am (Jamaica time) on the UNESCO website ich.unesco.org/en/15com.

The meeting follows Grange’s ministry’s submission of another Jamaican cultural form – Revivalism, Religious Practice of Jamaica – to UNESCO for inscription on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

“I have instructed my Technical Committee to ensure that each year, going forward, Jamaica submits one or more of its many cultural practices for inscription. I remember the worldwide celebrations after reggae was inscribed in Mauritius in 2018, and we are hoping for the same result with our file on Revivalism,” Grange said at the time.

UNESCO’s Representative List is an internationally recognised collection of thriving cultural practices, termed ‘elements’, which have been deemed to have outstanding universal value. Inscription is, therefore, a much-sought-after designation and States Parties to the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage need to demonstrate that they have put in place strategies to document and inventory their cultural elements and that safeguarding initiatives are undertaken with the full and prior consent of communities associated with the cultural practice. Notable inscriptions include Brazil’s Capoeira Circle, Rumba in Cuba, Italy’s Art of Neapolitan ‘Pizzaiuolo’ (Pizza) as well as India’s Yoga and the Ethiopian Epiphany.

Jamaica currently has two elements inscribed on the Representative List. These are the Maroon Heritage of Moore Town, Jamaica (2008) and Reggae Music of Jamaica, inscribed in Mauritius in 2019.

Jamaica’s dossier on Revivalism is currently under review for an announcement in 2021 at the 16th Session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Encouraging Jamaicans at home and in the Diaspora to learn more about the process, Grange, who grew up in a family of practising Revivalists, stated: “I am inviting members of the public and members of the Revivalism community, who were very engaged and who contributed so much to this submission to view a 10-minute video and high-quality photographs of Revivalism online at ich.unesco.org/en/files-2021-under-process-01119. I believe this is also a good resource for students doing their SBA’s, as well as theologians, and is a use way to create more awareness of Revivalism.”