Belize Joins Regional Push to Preserve Afro‑Descendant Heritage

Belize’s cultural work on the regional stage continues this week. Fresh off a Central American push to protect Indigenous languages, Belizean cultural leaders are now joining a second regional effort, this time focused on Afro‑descendant heritage. Representatives from the National Garifuna Council and the National Kriol Council are taking part in a workshop that trains participants to document and preserve the oral traditions, stories, and community knowledge that define Afro‑descendant life. Organizers say the goal is simple but urgent: equip local leaders with the tools to safeguard the intangible heritage passed down through generations, the kind you learn not from artifacts, but from your grandparents.

 

Rafael Mona, Central American Cultural & Education Coordination

“This workshop is about African descendants’ heritage and it’s one of the multinational products of Central America, about Afro-descendants and African descendant heritage. And the participants are the National Garifuna Council and the National Kriol Council of Belize. They are representatives of the communities, of the African descendants communities in Belize.

 

Wilford Felix, President, National Kriol Council

“This workshop is very significant in terms of our participation regionally, as Afro-descendants, with specific focus on documenting, as it’s referred to, inventorying our intangible cultural heritage. Intangible cultural heritage as a whole represents, as it’s called, intangible, the aspects of our heritage that can be passed won from generation to generation without the use of an artifact. So this speaks specifically to us as Afro-descendants, referring to our oral traditions and being able to learn the international methodologies to inventory our intangible cultural heritage, allow us to work closer with communities and preserve those age-old wisdoms that you can only get, in most cases, from your granny and your grandpa.”

 

And as that workshop continues, Belizean cultural leaders say they’re committed to keeping those ancestral stories and traditions alive for the generations coming next.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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