Eighteen pilot schools across Botswana, Malawi and Zambia are testing a specific delivery mechanism: classrooms where elders, cultural practitioners and teachers work side by side to bring living heritage into daily learning. The project, “Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage in Basic Education in Botswana, Malawi, and Zambia,” is run by UNESCO with support from the Government of Japan. Its first year of implementation has produced measurable groundwork rather than promises.
The operational record so far is concrete. UNESCO supported the creation of national technical working groups in all three countries and convened more than 70 stakeholders to develop approaches for integrating living heritage into formal education. Building on that foundation, recent capacity-building workshops have equipped teachers and education officials with practical tools for incorporating heritage into lessons. In Botswana, 85% of participants in the most recent workshop reported significantly increased confidence in applying these approaches in schools. The initiative also builds on an earlier phase delivered in Namibia and Zimbabwe with support from the Government of Flanders (Belgium), giving the current programme an established implementation lineage.
The delivery model itself is straightforward. Schools act as the interface between communities and the curriculum. Through traditional crafts, oral traditions, indigenous food systems and environmental practices, learners engage directly with knowledge held by the custodians of that heritage, their own communities. One teacher described the shift in practical terms: “In my classroom, it means taking what children already see, hear and experience at home and bringing that knowledge into learning. It is no longer an abstract idea in a book. They are learning through doing.”
What is being transmitted is intangible cultural heritage in its many forms: songs, stories, traditional crafts, knowledge of nature, social practices, performing arts and indigenous languages passed from one generation to the next. Across Southern Africa, communities remain the custodians of this living heritage, keeping it relevant in contemporary society. Meanwhile, the programme now extends this work across Botswana, Eswatini, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, with UNESCO and its partners helping communities bring intangible heritage into schools while enriching education for peace, sustainability and global citizenship.
Early outcomes are already visible at community level. Parents, teachers and heritage practitioners report stronger intergenerational connections, renewed appreciation for local languages and traditions, and greater community participation in education. For an initiative measured by whether knowledge actually moves between generations, these are the indicators that matter.
As Southern Africa marks the International Day of Intangible Cultural Heritage on 17 October 2026, the eighteen pioneering schools offer a working example of how education can sustain living heritage while equipping young people to shape a more inclusive and resilient future. Whether the Botswana workshop’s confidence gains translate into sustained classroom practice across all three countries will be the real test of the delivery model. Further detail on the programme is available from UNESCO at https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/how-communities-southern-africa-are-keeping-living-heritage-alive-through-education.