The opening session of the Capacity Building Workshop on ICH for Youth: First Workshop of the Three-Year Training Programme was held online on July 5, 2021.

The opening session of the Capacity Building Workshop on ICH for Youth: First Workshop of the Three-Year Training Programme was held online on July 5, 2021. The workshop was co-organized by the International Training Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO (CRIHAP) and the UNESCO Beijing Office, and it drew 130 students aged 18-28 from 50 colleges and universities in China as trainees.

Mr. Shahbaz Khan, Director of the UNESCO Beijing Office; Mr. Wang Fuzhou, Vice President of Chinese National Academy of Arts, and Director-General of the China National Centre for Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage and Mr. Liang Bin, Director-General of CRIHAP, attended the opening session.

The opening session of the Capacity Building Workshop on ICH for Youth: First Workshop of the Three-Year Training Programme was held online on July 5, 2021.

Mr. Shahbaz Khan pointed out that UNESCO attaches great importance to the role of youth in the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage. The training is of great significance and would provide students with new perspectives, ways and platforms to understand intangible cultural heritage.

Mr. Wang Fuzhou said young people are the future of ICH safeguarding, and hoped that this workshop could fully stimulate their potential to make contributions to this field. He stressed that the development of cultural heritage needs a full combination of theory and practice, thus young scholars should pay attention to theoretical study to guide their practice. He also introduced discipline construction in cultural heritage currently being carried out in China.

Mr. Liang Bin said CRIHAP took enhancing the awareness and ability of intangible cultural heritage safeguarding of countries in the Asia Pacific region as its own responsibility. This workshop was a new exploration of providing training for young people in the capacity-building of ICH safeguarding under the epidemic situation. With the familiar "shooting video" of young people as the starting point, it could mobilize their enthusiasm for ICH safeguarding and promote them to become practitioners in this field.