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UNESCO Supports Documentary Heritage in Sudan with Awareness, Digitization

The UNESCO logo is seen during the opening of the 39th session of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at their headquarters in Paris, France, October 30, 2017. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer/File Photo
The UNESCO logo is seen during the opening of the 39th session of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at their headquarters in Paris, France, October 30, 2017. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer/File Photo
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UNESCO Supports Documentary Heritage in Sudan with Awareness, Digitization

The UNESCO logo is seen during the opening of the 39th session of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at their headquarters in Paris, France, October 30, 2017. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer/File Photo
The UNESCO logo is seen during the opening of the 39th session of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at their headquarters in Paris, France, October 30, 2017. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer/File Photo

UNESCO in Khartoum has assured that it plans to maintain its works related to preserving the documentary heritage of Sudan through a project aimed at determining, preserving and digitizing valuable, historic documents.

During a workshop dubbed “Determining Priorities of Documentary Heritage in Sudan”, Ayman al-Badri, interim director of UNESCO Bureau in Kartoum, said the Sudanese documentary heritage is a priority for the UNESCO, mainly museums, adding that this project is held in partnership with the Sudanese Document House, Sudanese Documentation Association, and a Japanese fund worth $300,000 in collaboration with UNESCO to protect and support significant, historic documents in the Sahel region.

“The historic documents are evidence of human activity in the pre-industrial periods. Science and knowledge have developed over the years driven by education, and lessons should be learned and transferred through generations,” the Japanese ambassador to Sudan said during the workshop.

The ambassador said Sudan is an ancient civilization with three regions enlisted as world heritage sites, in addition to the Kingdom of Kush, which prospered for centuries, and paved the way for the current Sudanese state.

The Japanese ambassador believes that Sudanese documents are priceless, and therefore, cadres of documentary heritage should be trained, noting that Japan will make all efforts to support the project in Sudan and Sahel region.

For his part, Dr. Abdo Othman said “the project aims at saving the documentary heritage by figuring out a special mechanism to compensate many documents that Sudan has lost due to clashes, floodings, and crime.”

Dr. Afaf al-Amin, director general of the Sudan Document House, called on UNESCO and the sponsoring organizations to address the problems facing the documentary heritage in Sudan. She also said the house keeps over 100-year-old documents, including 33 about the history of Sudan, Islamic sultanates, Turkish occupation, and Mahdist State.

Al-Amin said the house is currently working on 100 documents and training a number of cadres from related institutions, noting that the house is also reconsidering the institutions dealing with the cultural heritage. She also stressed the importance of expertise exchange to facilitate the documentary heritage preservation.

“The association has successfully managed the Sudan Memory Project and supported many initiatives launched by civil society associations interested in heritage preservation,” Khaled al-Zein from the Sudanese Association of Knowledge Documentation, told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“As long as we have the potential to support, we shall not forget the vocal heritage because it’s very rich and can be beneficial for our society. Even the scientific research stacked on shelves should be seen as useful documents,” he added.

At the end of the workshop, Abdul Qadir Zein al-Abidin, UNESCO’s culture official in Khartoum, said “the way to saving documentary heritage depends on taking the necessary measures to protect it from damage and loss, as well as setting foundations to determine and collect documentary heritage, and raise awareness for this subject in school curricula.”

The workshop’s recommendations were many including a call to establish a documentary TV channel to raise awareness among the public, sharing all the important documents on the Documents’ House official website for an easier access, launching a campaign to motivate the public on handing the documents of their families, as well as searching for over 50,000 lost documents on Sufism.

The workshop came as part of many documentary heritage projects launched by the UNESCO in Sudan, such as the project to maintain old manuscripts, Scholarship of UNESCO bureau in GGC countries and Yemen for the Sudanese Memory Institutions, preservation of documentary heritage of the cultural council and promoting national languages at the information ministry, in addition to the “project to create and maintain a digital archive of music and folklore” at the Institute of African and Asian Studies, Khartoum, aimed at digitizing 1,000 cassettes, and publishing more about the Sudanese cultural heritage on the web to make it locally and globally accessible.

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$344 for a Coffee? Scottish Farm is Selling UK's Most Expensive Cup

This undated handout photo shows farmer and owner of Mossgiel Organic Farm Bryce Cunningham, right, giving a bottle of milk to barista Jacob Smith, as they pose outside The Good Coffee Cartel in Glasgow, Scotland. (Mossgiel Organic Dairy via AP)
This undated handout photo shows farmer and owner of Mossgiel Organic Farm Bryce Cunningham, right, giving a bottle of milk to barista Jacob Smith, as they pose outside The Good Coffee Cartel in Glasgow, Scotland. (Mossgiel Organic Dairy via AP)
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$344 for a Coffee? Scottish Farm is Selling UK's Most Expensive Cup

This undated handout photo shows farmer and owner of Mossgiel Organic Farm Bryce Cunningham, right, giving a bottle of milk to barista Jacob Smith, as they pose outside The Good Coffee Cartel in Glasgow, Scotland. (Mossgiel Organic Dairy via AP)
This undated handout photo shows farmer and owner of Mossgiel Organic Farm Bryce Cunningham, right, giving a bottle of milk to barista Jacob Smith, as they pose outside The Good Coffee Cartel in Glasgow, Scotland. (Mossgiel Organic Dairy via AP)

It's an enormous price to pay for a little cup of coffee, but the man behind the pitch promises it won't leave a bitter taste behind as it comes with the sweetner of a share of a dairy farm.
A Scottish dairy is offering what it bills as the UK's most expensive cup o' joe: 272 British pounds ($344) for a flat white — a double shot of espresso topped with a layer of steamed milk and a fleeting work of foam art, The Associated Press reported.
The costly cup is actually a perk for purchasing shares in Mossgiel Organic Dairy's crowdfunding campaign to enlarge its sustainable operation and produce more milk. Investors who buy 34 shares in the farm get a certificate for a flat white that can be redeemed starting this weekend at one of 13 coffee shops in Scotland that use the dairy's milk.
“This coffee costs nearly 80 times the price of an average flat white in the UK — but it’s much more than just a lovely drink,” said owner Bryce Cunningham. "We know it sounds crazy, but when you break it down, it’s a pretty good deal. How much is the future of farming worth?”
The price tops the eye-watering 265 pounds that Shot London, a coffee bar in the posh Mayfair and Marylebone neighborhoods, charged for a flat white made with rare beans from Okinawa, Japan. The Telegraph reported in April that it was the most expensive coffee in Britain.
Before launching the coffee promotion, Cunningham had already raised more than a third of the 300,000 pounds he is seeking from small investors as he tries to get a 900,000 pound loan that will help him double operations and expand out of Scotland and as far as coffee shops in London.
Shareholders receive other rewards, too, such farm tours, milk delivery discounts and invites to special events. But investors are also given a standard warning that they could lose some or all of the money they invest — except for the coffee.
The tenant farm in Mauchline, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Glasgow, was worked in the 18th century by poet Robert Burns, who penned “Auld Lang Syne" and many other well-known works. Burns, who is considered the national poet of Scotland, wrote while working in the fields there for two years and his face graces each glass bottle of Mossgiel milk.
Cunningham, a former service manager for Mercedes-Benz, took over the operation in 2014 after his father and grandfather died in 2014 from terminal illnesses.
The collapse of milk prices that year and other problems forced him to sell off most of the herd and reinvent the business as an organic farm. He uses a process to “brew” the milk, instead of pasteurize it, that he said gives it the creamer taste and texture of raw milk without the health risks.
Todd Whiteford, one of the owners of The Good Coffee Cartel in Glasgow that is serving the costly cups, said they’ve been using Mossgiel's milk for several years. Despite “outrageous offers" from competitors to switch, he said other milk producers can't match the quality and consistency that makes for “rounder, smoother and sweeter” cappuccinos, lattes and flat whites — and better coffee art.
“Theirs is the best. I’ll argue with anyone about that,” Whiteford said.
Anyone who splashes out to buy a Mossgiel coffee, though, will be getting the same cup other Coffee Cartel customers can purchase for 3.10 pounds. But Cunningham says there will be a taste of virtue with every posh cup.