Morocco and Korea signed, Monday, November 28, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the safeguarding and transmission of know-how related to craft trades threatened with extinction.
This memorandum, initialed by the Minister of Tourism, Handicrafts and Social and Solidarity Economy, Fatim-Zahra Ammor and the Administrator of the Cultural Heritage Administration of the Republic of Korea, Choi Eung-Chon, aims to establish cooperation between the two institutions in the field of safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage linked to craftsmanship, through the documentation and digitization of endangered knowledge and know-how, as well as through their transmission to future generations according to a “Master craftsman/student” approach, says the ministry.
It also provides for the support of Morocco by South Korea in the establishment of a system of “Living Human Treasures”, this country being one of the pioneer countries in the field of recognition and protection master craftsmen carrying ancestral knowledge and know-how.
For Fatim-Zahra Ammor, the purpose of signing this MoU with the Cultural Heritage Administration of the Republic of Korea is to “help us preserve this heritage”, given the great experience that the country has in this area.
Welcoming the signing of this “significant” agreement in the fields of intangible cultural heritage and traditional crafts between the Republic of Korea and the Kingdom of Morocco, Eung-Chon, for his part, recalled that the cooperation between the two countries has a long history in the field of culture and the arts.
The signing ceremony of the MoU took place in the presence of the head of the Culture Program of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) office for the Maghreb and a Korean delegation from level, chaired by the Administrator of the Cultural Heritage Administration, with the participation of the Director General of the International Information and Networking Center for the Asia-Pacific Region (ICHCAP), and directors, researchers and specialists in the field of intangible cultural heritage.