Foundation Course for the Caribbean Region

This project is part of the programme “Capacity building, implementation actions and increase ratification schemes for the 2001 Convention for the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage in Latin America and the Caribbean” financed by the Spanish government. It is also part of the regional capacity building programme, which UNESCO started in 2009, when the Foundation Courses in Thailand were developed for this use.

The project aims to protect the underwater cultural heritage in the Caribbean by building regional capacities to properly manage and preserve underwater archaeological sites through the establishment of a regional Training Programme in
Jamaica. This project was formulated in response to the recommendation of delegates and experts during the UNESCO Caribbean meeting on the protection of the underwater cultural heritage held in Port Royal, Jamaica, from 10 to 11 May 2011.

The UNESCO training in Jamaica was for a large part financed by The Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency, under the framework of Mutual Cultural Heritage and the Maritime Programme. The programme protects the shared cultural heritage that the Netherlands has together with other countries.

The Netherlands has an extensive colonial history in the Caribbean: its former colony Suriname is in this region, the country holds close bonds with Curacao, Aruba and St. Maarten and Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Logically, this is an area of great importance for the mutual cultural heritage programme. An example of this shared heritage could be a shipwreck of the WIC in the Surinamese waters. But in this region, the knowledge and capacity of underwater archeology shows room for improvement.

The knowledge and experience that were acquired on the UNESCO fieldschool in Thailand -where Foundation and Advanced Courses were developed- are now used in the Caribbean. This central approach by UNESCO is providing a global equal level of management of underwater cultural heritage.

The first course in the Caribbean was taught in Port Royal in Jamaica, in cooperation with the Netherlands cultural heritage agency and the Spanish government. The course consisted of:
*Survey Methods
*Data Management
*Underwater Cultural Heritage Management
*Methods of Site Identification
All based on the Foundation course manual.

OBJECTIVES
Capacity building and extending the expertise of underwater archeology in the Caribbean, to facilitate the preservation of mutual cultural heritage. Another objective is creating more awareness for the importance of preservation of cultural heritage. And to create a platform for cooperation between different countries, which should lower the barriers to exchange knowledge in this field.

RESULTS
In November 2012, 17 students have participated in the course. These students came from Belize, Guyana, Aruba, Saba, St. Lucia, the Cayman Islands, Antigua, The Dominican Republic, Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, St. Vincent, St. Kitts & Nevis, Dominica en Jamaica. The course has thus provided more knowledge to professionals from the whole Caribbean region.

See also:
Spanish government (Organisation)

Hans K Van Tilburg (Expert)

Spanish government (Organisation)