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Sustaining Cultures
A Social Impact Venture
for Inclusive Sustainable Futures
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About us
Founded in 2022
Sustaining Cultures is dedicated to providing support to traditional communities, assisting them to preserve their culture and countries. We co-designed community-led managerial strategies, plans and systems such as Cultural Heritage Management Plans for mining interventions, heritage assessments impact and guidance and toolkits for protection of Country. Our work is based on people-centred, culture-based and human rights-oriented principles of mutual understanding, respect and appreciation for local social values, cultural practices, spiritual traditions and beliefs.
We are a Social Impact Venture with the objective of assisting traditional communities and industry in achieving inclusive sustainable development. Inclusive sustainable development ensures stakeholders affected by a development contribute to creating opportunities, share the benefits and participate in decision-making and governance. Inclusive sustainable development aims to distribute the benefits of economic growth more equitably while respecting and preserving traditional communities' culture and cultural landscape values, promoting a people-centred economy that improves the well-being and quality of life of local people.
Sustaining Cultures offers a range of social and cultural products and services seeking to promote inclusive sustainable development. We operate working directly with local communities and with industry sectors responsible for community engagement and development.
OUR WORK
PROTECTING COUNTRY
Our work on protecting and caring for traditional communities' lands includes capacity building, collaborative engagement and co-designing cultural heritage management plans and cultural land management systems to help local people in shared management activities impacting their lands, social lives and cultures.
CULTURALLY SENSITIVE TRAINING
Sustaining Cultures understands how important Culturally sensitive training programs are to First Nations Peoples, to raise a sense of responsibility in industry employees, the general community and their own people. We co-design the programs together with local people based on the Aboriginal/Indigenous worldview, including the following services:
● Co-design methodology, scope and standards for the program.
● Co-design and develop the program according to the targets for completion to be agreed upon between stakeholders.
● Assist with the production of informative material for face-to-face and virtual training.
● Assist with the integration of the Culturally sensitive Training Program into the industry induction process.
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Sustaining Cultures has expertise in identifying, researching and supporting business case development for Social and Cultural enterprises, and proposes to focus its services on these enterprises. Social and Cultural enterprises incorporate cultural aspects of a community, and/or improve social and cultural outcomes for a community. This is distinct from ‘commercial’ business enterprises that do not incorporate cultural aspects or aim to improve broader community social and cultural outcomes.
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL PROJECTS
Sustaining Cultures understands a key priority for the First Nations Peoples is identifying, researching and co-designing projects that deliver positive social and cultural outcomes. Potential projects could include intergenerational transmission of knowledge and knowledge systems mapping, social and cultural heritage research, cultural history of significant sites and landscape values, preservation of cultural practices, and environmental programs.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
What We Believe In
COLLABORATIVE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENTS
Meaningful engagement with First Nation Peoples comprises collaborative work on designing plans, projects and programs, based on providing capacity building for empowerment and deep mutual understanding. Successful engagement can be facilitated through appropriate processes and methods to be discussed with and defined by the community representatives. Sustaining Cultures provides the following services:
● Identify key stakeholders and associated issues.
● Discuss best approach for engagement according to the community and issues profile.
● Conduct the engagement in rounds, reviewing/adjusting if necessary.
● Analyse and report on outcomes of engagement.
MAPPING KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS AND CULTURAL LANDSCAPE VALUES
We understand the First Nation Peoples seek to comprehensively map their culture, values and knowledge systems through a community-led process, that will require an approach that differs from the heritage surveys/consultation currently conducted. Sustaining Cultures has extensive experience in co-designing and co-developing engagement processes and facilitating engagements on-country for sharing knowledge and mapping cultural landscape values. Sustaining Cultures provides the following services:
● Co-design and co-develop the engagement process with the community.
● Facilitate on-country engagement.
● Code and analyse results.
● Develop and deliver reports.
● Assist with the selection of data for any authorised publication.
Mapping Cultures: Safeguarding and Promoting Living Heritage
Given voice to Indigenous Peoples
"For Indian peoples, the land is not only an object of possession and production. It forms the basis of their existence, both physical and spiritual, as an independent entity. Territorial space is the foundation and source of their relationship with the universe and the mainstay of their view of the world. The Indigenous peoples have a natural and inalienable right to the territories that they possess as well as the right to recover the land taken away from them. This implies the right to the natural and cultural heritage that this territory contains and the right to determine freely how it will be used and exploited." (1981 UNESCO Declaration of San Jose on Ethno-Development and Ethnocide in Latin America)
Community Participatory Mapping
Sustaining Cultures conducts processes to facilitate the co-designing and the development of Community Participatory Cultural Mappings. This type of mapping identifies Living Heritage - Immaterial Cultural Heritage associated with heritage assets and cultural landscape values.
Community participatory mapping is a community-based and community-led practice that aims at the representation of a landscape or a culture in two or three dimensions from the perspective of local people. This includes a broad range of cartographic practices, such as illustrations, scribing, rich pictures, and diagrams. The mapping involves a community identifying and documenting local cultural values and knowledge systems that can be used to inform collective strategies, planning processes, or other initiatives.
The mapping includes historical factors, personal histories, maps of fauna and flora, wild foods, knowledge transmission systems, memories and different types of maps of landscape-related resources, including use and land occupancy, place names, clan boundaries and traditional systems of resource management. The mapping can help communities manage their intangible heritage, document indigenous heritage and history, negotiate their natural resource use, and for the recognition of indigenous cultural practices, social values and economies.
According to Marilyn Truscott (ICOMOS, ICHC), the UNESCO ICH Convention indicates a few methods of participatory cultural mapping including:
Ground mapping – a basic map-marking method with informants
using raw materials such as soil, pebbles, sticks and leaves, to
create maps on the ground. They can be used as a first step to a
sketch map.
Sketch mapping
It is applied on paper with descriptions in writing.
Community members can use a range of choices of materials and
symbols to display features and size can reflect the importance to
community members.
Transect walk
It is a cross-section ground-truthing exercise
Mental map analysis
This mapping illustrates that different groups of people within communities or organizations may have different perceptions about the same mapping space; It is useful for different genders’, generations’ special places with ICH.
The Anthropological Cultural Mapping
The anthropologic cultural mapping is a community-based inventory. It is a comprehensive, holistic way of identifying, safeguarding, interpreting (by community) and promoting living heritage.
Inventorying involves identifying and defining elements of intangible cultural heritage always with the view to safeguarding them (Living Heritage and Indigenous Peoples, UNESCO, 2018). Community engagement with active local people’s collaboration on the identification of cultural landscape values is mandatory. Countries must ensure the widest possible participation of representatives and knowledge holders in the inventorying process.
Everyone Counts
Sustaining Cultures has built an environment of support and helpful resources to make sure that Allyship is always a priority. Our success is driven by the hearts, minds, and souls of our communities.
Ensuring that All Voices are Heard
We work to ensure the community and local leaders have the capacity building, knowledge, resources and opportunities to voice up their concerns and make a real change in their societies. We see our practices as collaborative efforts for connecting and building a stronger Cultural Movement.
Contact Us
Ready to make an impact? Contact us to learn how we can begin working together.
Perth, Australia
