BAGUIO CITY?Young Filipinos can now add a new work experience to their resumes: Cultural caregiver.

That?s the task a Swiss poet gave about 2,000 young artists who joined the second Sining Paaralang Pambansa (National Youth Arts Festival) held last week at Teachers? Camp here.

Saying ?culture is your future,? Tobias Biancone, director general of the International Theater Institute of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), named the participating youths ?cultural caregivers? on the prodding of Cecile Guidote-Alvarez, who coined the phrase.

Schools of living traditions

Alvarez, executive director of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), said the task requires young Filipinos to ?animate and respect your epics, your folklore, your historical experiences [in order to promote] inter-generational equity.?
The festival was designed as a meeting ground between government-funded schools for the arts and NCCA-supported ?schools of living traditions? to fulfill this mandate, she said.

Chants, terracing techniques

The schools for the arts train students in various artistic disciplines while the NCCA-initiated schools of living traditions collect indigenous knowledge by encouraging expertise in fields such as chants or the rice-terracing techniques of Ifugao.

Alvarez said she and Biancone hope to showcase a merging of these academic principles as ?a global model of what the arts can do for peace, social justice and sustainable development.?

This is achieved ?not by compulsion but by persuasion [and] not by weapons build-up but by mobilizing [our] creative resources,? she said.

Culture has taken a backseat in the government?s development agenda for years, Alvarez said, but the state now recognizes the fact that ?culture is the human capital?the wealth of our country?[that] allows us to meet any crisis.?

A force for peace

She described the festival as a bridge which fuses ?back culture? into the mandate of the Department of Education. The agency used to be called the Department of Education, Culture and Sports.

Alvarez told festival participants that culture helps shape understanding and compassion, which fuels a quest for peace.

She said the young artists demonstrated the ?power of the arts as a source of education.?