"BeezBistar Foundation (BBF), a community action-based non-governmental organization, was formed in 2009 by development workers and researchers. “BeezBistar” means prosperity in life and peaceful and joyful relations between human beings and all other life-forms. BBF works with local communities, especially farmers, weavers, fishers, adivashi, dalit, and other marginalized and socially vulnerable people for a prosperous and healthy life. Its guiding ethical principles are non-discrimination on the grounds of caste, race, class, and gender. BBF believes in people’s capacity to transform their existing situation of poverty and become pros- perous through a mediated process of interdependent, collective, and community support and actions. The notion of BEEZ is grounded in the local and indigenous culture of the peoples of Bangladesh, as well as advanced by science and life-affirming knowledge and technologies."

This article contains a brief summary of the major traditional wrestling styles that have been preserved by local populations in Central Asia, namely Turkmen goresh; Tajik gushtingiri; Uzbek kurash; Kazakh kuresi, and Balban kurosh. Each of these sports are considered as traditional wrestling styles, recognized at national level, while some of them have gained popularity at international level. Promotion of such national sports provides an opportunity to share national values and highlight national identity through intangible cultural heritage (ICH).

A major part of the Iranian Plateau consists of vast deserts with low precipitation ratios. Interestingly, the land has been home to numerous settlements since prehistory. To all these settlements, water constituted, as it is still is, a vital natural resource with economic, social, and cultural values.

The Pacific is known for its lush surroundings, white sandy beaches, deep blue ocean, acres and acres of land, friendly people, and mouth-watering delicacies. Fiji is no exception to this.

Long known as the cradle of civilization, the area that bounds from the fertile valleys of Al-Hasakeh, across the ancient deserts of Palmyra, and westward to the Mediterranean Sea, includes present-day Syria. Due to the vastness of the region, it is no wonder that Syrian cuisine boasts a rich culinary heritage dened by exceptional diversity and human creativity.

Phú Thọ - a midland province in northern Vietnam, is about 100 kilometres northwest of Hanoi where the sacred mountain Nghĩa Lĩnh also known as mountain Hùng exists. On Nghĩa Lĩnh mountain, there are Lower (Hạ), Middle (Trung) and Upper (Thượng) temples together with legends about 18 Hùng Kings of the Vietnamese people. Around Nghĩa Lĩnh mountain, there are hundreds of temples, communal houses and shrines located in villages and communes, which forms a religious space to worship Hùng Kings.

The festival of Diwali in India is celebrated by different communities in different ways, performing different rituals. It is a festival of lights celebrated by Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs, and usually lasts for five days.\nThe Sindhi community in India celebrates Diwali for just three days. One of the distinctive features of their celebration is the worshipping of a haatdi. Haatdi is also worshipped by a few Gujarati communities.\n“Haatdi” comes from the word haat and symbolizes a shop. People worship it mainly to invoke the blessings of Lakshmi (the goddess of abundance and auspiciousness) for work or business, praying for their business to prosper. A haatdi is a colorful representation of a shop. There are some who believe it used to represent the male members of the family who were the breadwinners. The number of haatdis bought was equal to the number of male members in the family, with one being for the female child. Nowadays they are usually bought in pairs of two, four, six. After Diwali, the haatdi is immersed in water.\nThe making of clay haatdi begins on the day of Ganesh Chaturthi, which is regarded as auspicious and usually falls in August or September. The people of a particular community in Ahmedabad are involved in the making of haatdis, with the whole family taking part. They even travel out of Gujarat to states like Maharashtra to make and sell their wares. Haatdis are made and sold until Kaali Chaudas (the second day of the five-day festival of Diwali).\nA demonstration of the process of making a haatdi was given by Mr. Chaturbhai, Mr. Varshrambhai, Mr. Bharatbhai, and their families at their place in the lane opposite APS International School in Ahmedabad. Even I enjoyed trying my hand at making a haatdi during this experience organized by India Heritage Walks and led by Mr. Keyur Shah.

On identifying and researching the intangible cultural heritage of Ukraine together with local communities, local and regional cultural organizations, Development Centre “Democracy through Culture,” as an NGO accredited to UNESCO for ICH issues and engaged in ICH safeguarding, has found that music and singing traditions are inherent in all regions and localities of Ukraine as one of the most important national ICH manifestations. Among the different types of these arts (including one inscribed into the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, Cossack Songs of Dnipropetrovsk Region) there is one common and popular elsewhere, reflecting the past, present, and provisional future of Ukrainian culture. \n\nWhat is referred to as music and singing art is related to bandura. A bandura (Ukrainian: бандура) is more than a traditional music instrument in Ukrainian culture—it represents the entire social and cultural complex combining such integral parts as bandura making, bandura \nplaying, and bandura singing, writing texts of special poetical forms (dumas), performing, leading a certain lifestyle of travelling performer or travelling philosopher. Bandurysts, musicians who play the bandura have had a profound impact on Ukrainian folk culture as bearers of special knowledge and skills, even as magicians and prophets.

Torn apart by decades of conflict, post-2003 Afghanistan was on the brink of an economic, social, and cultural collapse. Besides the much-mediatized shelling of the country’s material heritage, such as the Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan’s intangible heritage equally took an untold toll. In addition to various practices that had been directly targeted and proscribed (such as making the rubab, a short-necked lute), a general weakening of the national economy, disruption of raw material procurement networks, and an overall destruction of the social fabric put a majority of Afghanistan’s heritage at risk. Particularly threatened were its craftsmen, the stewards of woodcarving, goldsmithing, or miniature techniques, skills firmly rooted in more than 3,000 years of artistic traditions and defining features of many of the country’s communities.

Johan Huizinga coined the term homo ludens to define humans as animals that play. The playful nature of Koreans as homo ludens is represented most definitively by the game, yutnori. It has been well loved by young and old and men and women alike throughout history. The game is especially important as a children’s game that helps develop strategic thinking skills while still being simple to learn.

In Myanmar traditional dance, Yein Aka (group dance) is a form in which dancers perform solos, alternating with their fellow group members. It is performed with the accompa\u0002niment of a traditional orchestra known as Hsaing Waing. There are various kinds of Yein, including Thagyan Yein (water festival dance), Nat Kadaw Yein (a dance to pray to spirits), A Pyodaw Yein (ladies’ dance), and Simi Yein (candle light dance). Most group dances are performed by women, although some are for men.

"In this region of many “lands” surrounded by water, knowledge of the land and its harvests is tied closely to identity and heritage. This section’s themes thus offer a closer look at how the knowledge of caring for the land and harvests is a way of feeling for the Pacific islanders. This ICH, in addition to coloring people’s interactions on the land and carrying expressions of respect, is a means of ensuring sustainability and prosperity.\nPacific islanders depend largely on the land and their harvests from it for their survival, but these also hold deeper meaning for life. To the people of Vanuatu, for instance, laplap soso'ur is more than an edible delicacy: it is a feature of their cultural identity and a means to bring people together across societal levels. Similarly, in Palau, the mesei taro fields are valuable property, but they are also much more in that these pieces of land are deeply connected to the identity of the people, particularly women, and figure prominently in the colorful oral histories of the Palauans. Both of these cases, along with the other themes in this section, reflect the profound value of ICH related to the Pacific islands and their harvests."