From December 2-7, 2024, the nineteenth session of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (19.COM) will be held in Asunción, Paraguay (calendar of events). This is the world’s most important event on issues related to Living Heritage, with the participation of stakeholders, experts and policy makers from around the world.

As part of the activities planned for the week of proceedings, the UNESCO Chair on Intangible Cultural Heritage and Comparative Law at the University of Rome Unitelma Sapienza has organized, together with international partners from Turkey, Uganda and Brazil, a brainstorming session on the theme “Youth and Living Heritage: New Approaches in a Comparative Perspective”,  with experts from all over the world, from Latin America to the Middle East, from Canada to sub-Saharan Africa, who will bring their experience on the topic.

The discussion started from the initial results of a research on the relationship between young generations and the safeguarding of ICH (“Concept note: Youth and Living Heritage”, download available here) carried out by a team of international experts from the UNESCO Chair of Unitelma Sapienza, which is the only UNESCO Chair in the world to have obtained official permission from UNESCO to organize a side event during the entire week of the 19.COM.