20 April 2016
South Africa’s Freedom Park joined the world in commemorating International Day of Monuments and Sites on 18 April.
Endorsed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) was enshrined in 1964. Its role is to lead the conservation and protection of cultural heritage sites.
This year the theme of the day was “The Heritage of Sport” because “sports have developed from the origin of humankind onwards and have left testimonies to the diversity of installations and facilities related to their practice, many of them bearing values related to the development of architecture, art and techniques”, said Mechtild Rossler, the director of Unesco’s World Heritage Centre.
Sport was also a tool that helped nation building and to unite people, noted Freedom Park.
“The 18th of April is a day which finds its purpose of having a reflexive ambience of cultural heritage worldwide,” reads the Freedom Park website. “Furthermore, sport has been a strong activity which has successfully aligned itself towards nation building and gives a platform for all cultural diversity to partake in.”
Freedom Park, alongside the Department of Basic Education, the City of Tshwane and Lucas Moripe Foundation got learners involved by asking 10 schools to conduct presentations through speech and prose, to demonstrate the role of cultural heritage institutions and how to conserve them.
Watch this to find out more about Freedom Park:
Source: South Africa.info reporter
