Colón, Panama Becomes a Hub for Dialogue on Intangible Cultural Heritage in Urban Settings

The city of Colón, Panama, became the setting for the "Workshop on Intangible Cultural Heritage in Urban Contexts," a workshop that brought together a wide diversity of voices, knowledge, and experiences related to cultural management, urban planning, territorial development, and ways to continue engaging young people in safeguarding Colon's living heritage.

The workshop featured the active participation of public institutions, young people, traditional bearers, as well as representatives from the cultural, tourism, academic, and municipal sectors. Participants included authorities from the Ministry of Culture of Panama (MiCultura), the Panama Tourism Authority, the Municipality of Colón, and the Ministry of Housing and Land-Use Planning, alongside professionals in architecture, urban planning, engineering, heritage management, audiovisual production, photography, traditional gastronomy, and popular arts.

The activity was organized with the support of the Ministry of Culture of Panama and is part of the regional project "Strengthening Capacities for Resilient Communities through Sustainable Tourism and the Safeguarding of Heritage in Latin America and the Caribbean," led by UNESCO with the generous support of the Ministry of Culture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Throughout the workshop, participants emphasized the importance of building strong alliances between communities, local governments, and cultural sectors as a key condition for integrating intangible cultural heritage into urban planning processes. In this context, it was highlighted that recognizing and valuing living heritage practices, expressions, and knowledge embedded in the city's daily life not only strengthens identity and social cohesion, but also contributes to more sustainable, inclusive urban development deeply rooted in Colón's collective memory.

Building on this reflection, the discussion was expanded to explore the mechanisms that communities, in coordination with public institutions, can implement to bring a greater number of young people closer to living heritage safeguarding. This dialogue was linked to concrete experiences in safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage, placing particular emphasis on intergenerational transmission, youth engagement, and the adaptation of cultural practices to changing urban contexts.

The workshop combined spaces for reflection, technical analysis, and collaborative work with field visits and practical exercises focused on Colón's urban context. These activities made it possible to highlight the richness of the living heritage present in the city, through expressions such as the Diablicos Sucios dance of Corpus Christi, independent music bands with strong youth participation, as well as traditional gastronomy and the ritual and festive expressions of Congo culture-all of which remain integral to Colón's cultural identity.

The training was facilitated by Dr. Guillermina Itzel De Gracia, PhD in Society and Culture: History, Anthropology, Art and Heritage , and Architect and Urban Planner Manuel Trute, who addressed practical tools, regulatory frameworks, and strategies for managing intangible cultural heritage in urban contexts. The content shared provided key technical inputs enabling participants to apply the knowledge acquired in the formulation of a set of practical recommendations to further integrate living heritage safeguarding into Colon's urban planning policies and programmes.

This regional effort, implemented in ten countries across Latin America and the Caribbean, is part of the project "Latin America and the Caribbean: Strengthening capacities for resilient communities through Sustainable Tourism and Heritage Safeguarding," which focuses on safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in urban contexts and its links to sustainable tourism. The project is unique in its scope, as it strengthens synergies between the 1972 World Heritage Convention and the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, generating positive impacts for a wide range of stakeholders in the cultural, urban planning, and tourism sectors across the region.