On 24 October, President Peter Stone of Blue Shield International and President Intaek Yoo of the GyeongGi Cultural Foundation, supported by the Newcastle University UNESCO Chair in Cultural Property Protection and Peace, signed a Memorandum of Understanding at Newcastle University in the UK. The MoU commits them to cooperation in the protection of world cultural and natural heritage sites during armed conflict and to joint scientific research. Together with Newcastle University, they hope to establish practical action plans to build the foundation on the ‘Gyeonggi-do DMZ World Heritage Listing Project’ and ‘DMZ World Heritage Listing Project’, which Gyeonggi-do Province has been working on with the Cultural Heritage Administration and Gangwon-do Province, protecting cultural property in conflict regions through international collaboration.
Peter Stone, President of the Blue Shield International since 2020 and UNESCO Chair in Cultural Property Protection and Peace at the Newcastle University, said:
“I hope that this agreement will serve as a positive case of international cooperation for the protection of cultural property in peacetime that we strongly believe in.”
Intaek YOO, President of the GyeongGi Cultural Foundation said:
“I am pleased to sign this MOU as a first step in promoting our common goal of working together with Blue Shield International, a leading international organisation in the field of cultural heritage to protect the Korean demilitarized zone, and we will continue to commit to peacebuilding through cultural heritage protection.”
GyeongGi Cultural Foundation and Blue Shield International signed a Memorandum of Understanding, 24 October 2023
The GGCF works to “establish a cultural platform to promote a culture of well-being among its residents and to make “GyeongGi-do a living place for culture.” They strive to build a cultural ecosystem by expanding support for culture and art, enhancing cultural exchange, and reviving local culture, while developing cultural policies and discovering items and traditions of cultural heritage, and training and improving art and culture activists. The GGCF has discovered and preserved numerous pieces of tangible and intangible cultural heritage and promoted them to the world. One of the important duties of the foundation is to improve the cultural well-being of the socially marginalized by closing the cultural gap between different areas and social groups.
Website: https://eng.ggcf.kr/
