This year, Blue Shield is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and the coming six months will be filled with events that mark our work as a leading heritage NGO committed to the protection of the world’s tangible and intangible cultural property, when threatened by conflict and natural or human-made disaster.
The current pandemic will prevent us from meeting in person, but it won’t stop us from travelling the globe virtually from Brussels to Buenos Aires, Tblissi to Timbuktu, and most places in between, to share the celebrations with our 28 National Committees and take part in the events they will be organising until the end of the year. We will be celebrating on social media, too, sharing stories, photos, videos and news on our different Twitter and Facebook channels using the hashtag #BlueShield25.
Although we are looking forward to looking back, we will be looking to the future, too, with these areas of our work in mind: advocating for the Blue Shield as a key organisation protecting cultural property in crisis; raising awareness of the work of the Blue Shield around the world, which remains a largely unfunded, voluntary organisation; building on the past 25 years to move ahead during the next 25; promoting the value of cultural heritage as a vital element of efforts to ensure the peace and security of communities; and promoting the implementation of cultural property protection as a vital element of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in our work.
We are following the path that the founding four dreamed of for ICBS 25 years ago, and as the events over the coming six months around the world will show, Blue Shield’s commitment to the protection of the world’s cultural property when threatened by conflict or disaster remains as steadfast as ever.
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