Civil society groups from Mauritius, Finland and Nepal have come together in a joint effort to collaborate and promote the intangible cultural heritage in their three countries. “This collaboration is about sharing between three countries that are different in terms of culture, but which share some commonalities,” says Marousia Bouvery of the Beau-Bassin based group ABAIM, which since its founding in 1982, initially to help blind workers at the Lois Lagesse Centre, has now grown to producing educational material in Kreol language and music. In 2020, it was accredited under the UNESCO convention for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage.

The UNESCO convention passed in October 2003, ABAIM’s Alain Muneean explained, works along five lines; firstly, about the promotion of mother tongues in countries and the production of cultural products such as riddles, songs and poetry. Secondly, performing arts for the creation of a creative economy that benefits artists and communities. Thirdly, overcoming difficulties in the transmission of cultural heritage and then reconnecting better to nature and the promotion of traditional craftsmanship. “While much empirical research has been done, the idea now is research that would provide evidence for the benefit of including music in the educational process,” says Muneean, “it’s about informing the authorities about how to come up with policies for culture and development, its impact on mainstream education and how all this can be a part of a transformational process in society.”

Coming from Finland, Anni Järvelä states that “since 2018 we started our collaboration with ABAIM in a number of ways” . She explains that in the Finnish village of Kaustinen, “we promote music through traditional instruments such as small violins” . Within Finland, her activity is informed what her organization dubs to be the Näppäri Method which encourages the preservation of traditional culture and music through extending learning opportunities, making music a part of everyday life, encouraging communities to play music together, incorporating Finnish folk music into the school curriculum and promoting music education. Vilma Timonen, lecturer in Folk Music at the University of Arts in Helsinki, says that “music education has a part to play in allowing students to identify, shape and reshape their identities and our visit to Mauritius has been an important part of this” . The idea, she adds, was to find ways to address, “the ruptures between the formal education process and what is needed at the community level, particularly in disadvantaged communities”.

Similar Goals

Riju Tuladhar, an academic at Kathmandu University and co-founder of a folk music festival in Nepal, says that “we come from three different areas of the world, but the goals when it comes to intangible cultural heritage are similar. The idea is to grasp and learn new things to be able to use in own context” . In Nepal where there are 125 different ethnic groups speaking 60 languages, he posits, “the challenge is how do we democratically give space to all of them after becoming a republic in 2006 and making sure that everybody is heard”.

According to Timonen, aside from learning from the experiences in each country, the expected outcome of this collaboration is to publish case studies from each country when it comes to intangible cultural heritage and “also come up with policy recommendations for our governments” . This is particularly important for Mauritius, Muneean argued, given that despite the fact that a lot of progress has been accomplished in Mauritius such as producing materials and making them available to teachers in the education system; and the inclusion of Kreol as a subject in schools and training courses at the Mauritius Institute of Education, “these things tend to fade. We need more MoUs with institutions when it comes to training and more continuity in what is being done in terms of policies,” he adds that “ultimately this is also part of a process to overhaul our process and methodology when it comes to education”.