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History of Weaving Memories

History of Weaving Memories

The project, in seven vitrines

Walk through the ideas that shape Weaving Memories: motivation, loss and damage, objectives, SDGs, global frameworks, policy, and partnerships. Open each vitrine and move slide by slide, like a small exhibition.

Vitrines in this room

Each vitrine is a mini-exhibition. Open it and use the arrows to move from one slide to the next.

01 Motivation & project 1 / 4

The starting point

The climate crisis erases culture too

When a territory grows more fragile, it is not only homes and roads that are lost: the rituals, languages, and memories that hold collective identity together erode as well. That loss is hard to price in pesos, but it is just as real.

The response

What Weaving Memories is

An initiative of the YoU-CAN programme (UNESCO Youth Climate Action Network) to safeguard climate-threatened intangible cultural heritage through ethical documentation, an open archive, and intergenerational transmission.

  • A sustainable, open digital archive.
  • Community-led collection of video, voice, and photography.
  • On-site gatherings that activate shared memory.
  • Communications and evaluation to replicate the model.

The general objective

Safeguarding living memory as climate justice

Even when the physical landscape changes, “cultural territory” can survive. The project is designed as a scalable, replicable model for other at-risk regions.

On the ground

The field story lives in Reportajes

The fieldwork in La Montaña de Guerrero —hurricanes, communities, and the Xtá Ratsá dance— is documented in its own exposition.

Go to the La Montaña de Guerrero exposition
02 Loss & damage 1 / 4

The concept

What is Loss & Damage?

In international climate policy, “Loss & Damage” names the impacts that go beyond the limits of adaptation: what can no longer be prevented or avoided.

The invisible

Non-economic loss & damage (NELD)

Beyond infrastructure, some losses never fit on a spreadsheet: identity, language, psychological well-being, and a community’s “spiritual infrastructure.” The project puts them at the center.

The grant

Loss and Damage Youth Grant

Weaving Memories was selected in the 2nd cycle of the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition (LDYC), with support from the Open Society Foundations and the Climate Justice Resilience Fund.

USD 25,000 Grant awarded by the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition (2nd cycle).
Loss and Damage Youth Coalition

International framework

Warsaw International Mechanism

The project aligns with the WIM: it contributes to documenting non-economic losses (Activity 23) and to placing Indigenous knowledge at the center of the climate response (Activity 25).
03 Objectives 1 / 2

Core

Safeguard, empower, resist

  • Safeguard intangible heritage through respectful documentation.
  • Empower communities —youth and elders alike— as protagonists.
  • Strengthen cultural resilience amid climate impacts.

Platform & reach

From archive to scale

  • Maintain an open digital archive as shared memory.
  • Foster intergenerational dialogue and knowledge exchange.
  • Run strategic communications for local and global audiences.
  • Prototype a scalable, replicable model for other regions.
04 The SDGs 1 / 4

2030 Agenda

An ethical compass

Climate action must be culturally grounded, inclusive, and community-led. Weaving Memories contributes to three Sustainable Development Goals.

SDG 11

Sustainable cities & communities

  • Culturally anchored recovery after extreme events.
  • Belonging and identity as social infrastructure.

SDG 13

Climate action

  • Surfaces non-economic loss tied to living heritage.
  • Threads culture into adaptation strategies.

SDG 17

Partnerships for the goals

  • Connects global youth, Indigenous territories, and institutions.
  • Pairs philanthropic finance with community knowledge.
05 Global frameworks 1 / 4

Living heritage

UNESCO 2003 Convention

Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage as a living, intergenerational process: the community leads — it is not a specimen to study.

UNESCO 2003 Convention

Indigenous rights

UNDRIP & ILO Convention 169

They recognize peoples’ right to maintain and protect their traditional cultural expressions and their spiritual ties to the land.

Environmental democracy

Escazú Agreement

It guarantees meaningful public participation in environmental decisions, enabling youth to lead their own narratives.

Climate ethics

UNESCO Ethics Declaration (2017)

Principles of equity, justice, and solidarity to center those hit first and worst by the climate crisis.
06 Policy & NDC 1 / 3

2025 milestone

Loss & Damage in the NDC 3.0

Mexico incorporated Loss and Damage into its Nationally Determined Contributions for the first time, creating a high-level mandate to protect populations on the front lines of climate mobility.

Legal framework

General Climate Change Law

The LGCC recognizes climate-driven internal displacement (Arts. 28 & 30) and requires respect for human, Indigenous, gender, and intergenerational rights (Art. 26). Action Line A7 of the 2022 NDC already targeted forced displacement.

The challenge

The data and funding disconnect

Hurricane Max (2017) displaced thousands, yet the international IDMC database recorded only 120 people: what is statistically invisible becomes budgetarily invisible. Although SEMARNAT and SHCP proved inaction costs more, adaptation budgets have fallen for a decade.

120 People IDMC recorded for Hurricane Max (2017), against thousands in reality.
07 Partnerships 1 / 2

Governance

A network, not a single voice

  • YoU-CAN — strategic design, global coordination, donor liaison.
  • Gusanos de la Memoria — cultural implementation rooted in Indigenous pedagogies.
  • REACCIONA — fiscal host with climate-justice-aligned operations.
  • UNESCO Mexico — safeguarding methodologies and quality review.
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