Sharing intangible cultural heritage knowledge in Nordic and Baltic Region

<< Background >>The motivation for the project was, in times of many uncertainties and risks, to build resilience by advancing safeguarding intangible cultural heritage (abbreviated ICH) and increasing its impact in strengthening communal ties and cultural and social sustainability in local level, national level and international level. This was based on the fact that the significance and potential of cultural heritage as a positive human and social force has been widely recognised during recent decades, besides the Unesco Convention for instance in the Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (Faro Convention, 2011).To achieve these aims, the project partners and other target groups had the need to strengthen the Nordic-Baltic Intangible Cultural Heritage Network and increase its effectivity through sharing expertise, good practices and grassroots practitioner communities’ experiences as well as to create open digitally accessible form to increase digital readiness and create wider learning opportunities. << Objectives >>The main objective of the project was to increase knowledge and understanding of intangible cultural heritage emphasising its social and cultural significance. The goal was also to strengthen the networks for co-operating around good practices related to intangible cultural heritage in the Nordic-Baltic region. One of the ways to achieve the goal was to increase understanding among different professional actors of society and to build their capacities to work with ICH. The mutual understanding and knowledge were also to be increased through offering possibilities of co-learning and sharing experiences among different ICH practitioner groups and communities in the Nordic-Baltic region.<< Implementation >>The project included three activities: a domain-crossing exchange program of ICH experts between ICH organisations, two webinars and a general meeting for the primary contact persons and committee members of the Nordic and Baltic ICH Network, and creating podcasts that deal with ICH and are digitally available in an adequate platform for audience interested in intangible cultural heritage.<< Results >>Knowledge about ICH and its role in increasing social coherence and participation in communities was disseminated through 6 expert exchange visits, 2 webinars, a general meeting and a series of three podcasts.The exchange visit reports were published on Safeguardingpractices.com-website hosted by the Norwegian Handicrafts Institute and are available there: https://safeguardingpractices.com/good-practice/sharing-ich-knowledge-in-the-nordic-and-baltic-region/.The podcasts series “Living the Heritage”, consisting of the three parts produced by this project and three parts produced by Livind-project was published on Finnish Folk Music Institute website and are available there: https://kansanmusiikki-instituutti.fi/en/living-the-heritage/Also, the number of members in the Nordic-Baltic network on Intangible Cultural Heritage increased by 25,2 % during the project.