13 Mar 2017

Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development, Thapelo Olopeng has encouraged Kgatleng District Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee and the entire community to ensure prudent use of Earthware pottery-making skills.

Officiating at the launch of the pottery project in Mochudi, Olopeng said successful implementation of the project would have many socio-economic and eco-tourism benefits for the district and the whole country, adding that Kgatleng was the first district to implement the UNESCO 2003 convention on the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage.

He therefore encouraged other districts to benchmark the way to write successful proposal for funding on Kgatleng.

Minister Olopeng said in 2009 a pilot project on intangible cultural heritage inventory-making activities at grassroots was undertaken in the Kgatleng with the assistance of the ministry and UNESCO experts.

He said the exercise resulted in the district making an inventory of 121 Intangible cultural heritage elements from which Botswana submitted a request for the inscription of the Earthenware pottery-making skills of the Bakgatla ba ga Kgafela, which in 2012 was inscribed by UNESCO under the Intangible cultural heritage urgent safeguarding list.

The minister applauded UNESCO for funding the promotion of Earthenware pottery-making skills project in Kgatleng with P700 000, a gesture he said should be cherished and supported.

Moreover, Minister Olopeng said ‘the efforts of the committee to strengthen the transmission of skills to the younger generation in the Kgatleng District through training, fieldwork, production workshops and dissemination of education materials, is highly commendable’.

The ministry, he said, had various programmes geared towards the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage and they included the constituency Arts and President’s Day competitions, commemoration of national languages and culture days as well as cultural festivals across the country.

He implored communities to take advantage of the programmes as a way of safeguarding their heritage.

For her part, secretary general, Botswana National Commission for UNESCO, Nnosang Mhutsiwa said four elements of intangible cultural heritage were inscribed on the list in 2012 by the intergovernmental committee for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage from four countries, Botswana being one of them.

Mhutsiwa encouraged Kgatleng District intangible cultural heritage committee to utilise funds allocated for the project according to the expectations of UNESCO.

For his part, Director of Phuthadikobo Museum, Vincent Rapoo said the objective of Earthenware pottery-making was to ensure viability by transmitting the skills to trainees.

He said meetings would be held with stakeholders to share ideas on the implementation of the project, adding that a four-month field work would be undertaken in all the five clusters in the district to identify and protect cultural places. ENDS