The National Institute of Folk & Traditional Heritage, popularly known as Lok Virsa, was established by the government of Pakistan in 1974 with a mandate to collect, document, preserve, and disseminate Pakistan’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Within three decades, Lok Virsa has grown from a fledgling endeavor, to creating a science of folklore into a developmental complex whose projects and activities span over the roots of the entire nation. nThe Research Centre of Lok Virsa encourages research in regional languages, folk literature, cultural history, arts, crafts and various aspects of folklore such as folk songs, seasonal songs, work songs, folk romances, folk tales, children games, legends, nursery rhymes, children tales, animal fables and legends attached to mountains, lakes, rivers, ruined castled, traditional festivals, superstitions and beliefs, customs and rituals, celebrations at birth, weddings and funerals among others.\nLok Virsa calls upon all master artisans, folk musicians, folk dancers and performers from the rural areas and remote regions of the country at the Artisans-at-work festival, popularly known as Lok Mela, each year. Over 100,000 eager participants come to visit this festival. Lok Virsa supports craftsmen and musicians by giving cash awards and proud recognition to them as living national treasures.

In the 1960s, Late Komal Kothari ,a renowed folklorist and ethnomusicologist and his very close friend, Vijaydan Detha an eminent Rajasthani writer realized that the problem of language covered the whole way of life of people and soon set out on a goal which became larger than collecting tales and songs. They further expanded their archival and research work in the field of folklore encompassing folk songs, folk tales, folk beliefs, proverbs, folk ballads, folk epics of long plays, folk gods and goddesses, social practices, rituals, fairs and festivals, rural food, nomads and pastoral ways of life. Until 1990’s they travelled more than 29000 villages to collect the large repository of cultural heritage both intangible (oral) in the form of audio video and tangible object’s of daily life made from natural resources. During 30years of intense study by them on folklore (in ethno-geographic regions) they finally looked into the traditional ways of knowledge transmission where the practice is to “learn but not to teach” in a structured way. In the year 1995 Komal Kothari got the recognition of his work by the Government of India and has been awarded Padma-Shree in 1983 and Padma Bhusan in 2004.

The Nagorik Uddyog (NU), a leading human rights NGO, has been working for the protection of rights, dignity, and heritage of the Dalit and other excluded communities of Bangladesh since 1995. NUs activities includes the protection and safeguarding of languages, folk music, drama and dances, heritage dress and food, traditional knowledge, beliefs and rituals, traditional means of livelihoods, folktales and literature, arts, and festivals.