Strengthen Intangible Cultural Heritage: Safeguarding and digital entrepreneurship skills for Hmong artisan women
In 2019, UNESCO Bangkok initiated the pilot project “Women e-nspire Culture” to empower artisan women through the development of digital and entrepreneurial skills to safeguard and promote their traditional knowledge and practices, also known as Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). As part of this project, UNESCO Bangkok conducted interviews with women from Chiang Mai’s Karen, Akha and Hmong communities to understand the challenges that they face. The top challenges were 1) capacity to document their ICH; (2) ways to transmit traditional practices and knowledge to the next generation; (3) and opportunities to improve their value-based marketing skills for sustainable income generation.
Based on these findings, UNESCO Bangkok collaborated with Samsung to organize the hackathon “Hack Culture: Digital Solutions to Empower Women and Safeguard Traditional Crafts” in August 2019. The hackathon brought together Samsung volunteers, Hmong artisan women from Doi Pui and Chiang Mai entrepreneurs to come up with solutions to the identified challenges. Hackathon teams proposed various Proof of Concepts (PoCs), which included websites, branding and marketing tools, and social media channels.
To ensure Hmong people in Doi Pui can maximize the use of these PoCs, with the support from Samsung, UNESCO will organize a two-day training workshop in collaboration with the Social Research Institute of Chiang Mai University. Facilitated by local experts with digital skills and expertise in ICH safeguarding, the workshop will offer further opportunities for youth and artisan women in Doi Pui to strengthen their digital entrepreneurship skills that can communicate the value of their crafts to both local youth and external audiences.
Objectives:
- To gather feedback and content (including photos, videos and documents) for a new central website and promote community-based storytelling and ownership.
- To enable artisan women to use the central website to promote and transmit their Intangible Cultural Heritage.
- To strengthen artisan women’s digital entrepreneurship skills.
Who:
- Artisan women and community leaders from Doi Pui.
- Facilitators from the Social Research Institute (SRI) of Chiang Mai University and the College of Arts, Media and Technology (CAMT), ICH experts and UNESCO Bangkok.
Key Documents & Presentations:
- Concept note and programme
- Opening session: Project overview, activities and workshop objectives (Ms. Auken Tungatarova and Ms. Montakarn Suvanatap, UNESCO Bangkok) (Thai)
- Session 1: Understanding the safeguarding of ICH (Dr. Alexandra Denes, UNESCO) (Eng; Thai) & Value of Local ICH (Dr Woralun Boonyasurat, SRI, CMU) (Thai)
- Session 2:
- Development and Promotion of Cultural Capital to Valuable Craft Products (Thanakorn Suteerasak, Chiang Mai Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art, SRI) (Thai)
- Presenting the new Hmong in Doi Pui Facebook-integrated website
- Group exercise on brainstorming and design thinking
- Presentations and wrap-up
- Session 3: Strengthening Digital Technology and Business Marketing Skills (Dr. Krot Leksomboon & Mr Monton Onwanna, Lanna Digital and Innovation Development Center, SRI, and Dr. Chalermpon Kongjit, CAMT) (Thai)
- Session 4: Content Development for the Website and Facebook to Promote Community Business (Dr Chalermpon Kongjit, CAMT) (Thai)
- Session 5: Sustainability and Next Steps
Where: Doi Pui Village, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Type of event: Training Workshop
Contact: ict (dot) bgk (at) unesco (dot) org
