The first day of a three-day validation workshop with LGUs and consultants for the cultural mapping project of the 3rd district and Iloilo City began on Nov. 4, 2024.
Held at the UP Visayas Little Theater from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., the workshop was led by the West Visayas State University (WVSU) Cultural Mapping Team in collaboration with UP Visayas.
Prof. Mary Ann De la Vega, project coordinator for the Cultural Mapping of Panay and Guimaras (CMPG), heads the WVSU team. “This validation is crucial because of its significance to our communities, which is why we welcome the stakeholders today,” said Rara Ramirez, Overall CMPG Project Leader, in her welcome remarks.
The community validation of cultural mapping seeks to achieve several objectives, aiming to make the process more inclusive, accurate, and community-driven. These objectives include:
• Confirming that cultural maps accurately represent the community’s values, history, and experiences.
• Safeguarding sensitive cultural knowledge, such as sacred sites, traditional practices, and beliefs.
• Fostering a sense of ownership and pride within the community for the project.
Additional goals include building trust in the cultural mapping process by ensuring transparency and collaborative decision-making and strengthening community identity and unity through the collaborative validation of cultural elements.
By the end of the project in 2025, the CMPG aims to produce a compendium of cultural assets for each municipality, a photo and video collection from the documentation phase with a comprehensive catalog, and five video documentaries showcasing the cultural heritage of the provinces.
