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Viewers may know about the Institute of Social and Cultural Research. That's the unit within the National Institute of Culture and History that labors diligently to preserve important elements of Belize's cultural heritage. They are the local historians who document and carry out social, cultural and anthropological research about important elements of the Belizean identity. 

They are now looking to refine their methods of preservation with the launch of a new online presence called the Belize Living Heritage Website. It is contemplated as an electronic library of all the traditional teachings of the different ethnicities that make up the Belizean society. For several months now, the researchers have been documenting volumes of cultural heritage that were previously passed down only through word of mouth from one generation to the next.

The Institute publicly unveiled this new website at an event launch today, and 7News stopped by to get an understanding of all the work that was involved create this library of cultural heritage. Here's what one of the main personalities behind the initiative at the institute told us about the undertaking:

Selene Solis - Senior Research & Education Officer, ISCR
"Today, we launched our Belize Living Heritage website. That's www.belizelivingheritage.org, and this website is envisioned and is a portal to highlight all the cultural practices, traditions, cultural knowledge and entire experiences that constitute culturally Belizean communities."

"What our cultural stakeholders told us is that we needed a dedicated portal where reputable, verified, credible information can be found that highlights the information, the knowledge that is existing, ongoing. That is being focused on and transmitted in Belizean communities, and that it is accessible to the wider Belizean community, and the global audiences. There is a lot going on in Belize cultural preservation, cultural safeguarding, and cultural transmission. community organizations are consistently involved in safeguarding their cultural practices and traditions, and ensuring the knowledge associated with that is transmitted to future generations. And they want that highlighted so that they have this information accessible to them so that it's not lost to the ages so that it's not lost with some of our elders, who might be passing on, and who might not be given the opportunity of transmitting that knowledge. That is the purpose of this website, to allow a portal for us to access that information, and to gather that information."

"We work very closely with cultural organizations, community-based organizations, and practitioners of living heritage. So, we go into their communities. They are the ones who identify the knowledge-bearers in their communities. If there's a specific cultural practice, like a specific [piece of] music, they identify the master musician of that music practice, if you will, and they tell us, this is the person that you need to speak to. This is the person that we need to record, because if we don't have access to this person, a wealth of our community's knowledge, experiences and history will be lost." 

"A lot of the materials, the processed materials, the vetted materials that we've developed so far - and all will be made available on the Belize Living Heritage website. So, if you explore the resources section of the website, you'll find a lot of the posters, pamphlets, brochures, video documentaries and other materials we've developed so far. The inventory articles, which act as a sort of Wikipedia articles, brief some articles, also tell you about the specific cultural practices, traditions, and knowledge being featured there. If you would want access to let say the full length and breadth of content that we've collected over the years, because there's a bit of content - interviews, documented content that we've gathered, you'd need to visit the Institute for Social and Cultural Research and access our full collection at our offices in Belmopan. This just allows us to monitor and act as custodians, and to protect that information on behalf of the communities."

Again, that website's address can be found at www.belizelivingheritage.org.