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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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'It's a Bird! It's a Plane!' it's Both, with Pilot Tossing Turkeys to Rural Alaska Homes

This image taken from video provided by Mountain Mind Media/Alaska Gear Company shows a plane from Alaska Turkey Bomb, which was started by Esther Keim to air drop frozen turkeys for Thanksgiving to people living in remote rural Alaska, flying in November 2024, in Alaska. (Mountain Mind Media/Alaska Gear Company via AP)
This image taken from video provided by Mountain Mind Media/Alaska Gear Company shows a plane from Alaska Turkey Bomb, which was started by Esther Keim to air drop frozen turkeys for Thanksgiving to people living in remote rural Alaska, flying in November 2024, in Alaska. (Mountain Mind Media/Alaska Gear Company via AP)
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'It's a Bird! It's a Plane!' it's Both, with Pilot Tossing Turkeys to Rural Alaska Homes

This image taken from video provided by Mountain Mind Media/Alaska Gear Company shows a plane from Alaska Turkey Bomb, which was started by Esther Keim to air drop frozen turkeys for Thanksgiving to people living in remote rural Alaska, flying in November 2024, in Alaska. (Mountain Mind Media/Alaska Gear Company via AP)
This image taken from video provided by Mountain Mind Media/Alaska Gear Company shows a plane from Alaska Turkey Bomb, which was started by Esther Keim to air drop frozen turkeys for Thanksgiving to people living in remote rural Alaska, flying in November 2024, in Alaska. (Mountain Mind Media/Alaska Gear Company via AP)

In the remotest reaches of Alaska, there’s no relying on DoorDash to have Thanksgiving dinner — or any dinner — delivered. But some residents living well off the grid nevertheless have turkeys this holiday, thanks to the Alaska Turkey Bomb, The Associated Press reported.
For the third straight year, a resident named Esther Keim has been flying low and slow in a small plane over rural parts of south-central Alaska, dropping frozen turkeys to those who can't simply run out to the grocery store.
Alaska is mostly wilderness, with only about 20% of it accessible by road. In winter, many who live in remote areas rely on small planes or snowmobiles to travel any distance, and frozen rivers can act as makeshift roads.
When Keim was growing up on an Alaska homestead, a family friend would airdrop turkeys to her family and others nearby for the holidays. Other times, the pilot would deliver newspapers, sometimes with a pack of gum inside for Keim.
Her family moved to more urban Alaska nearly 25 years ago but still has the homestead. Using a small plane she had rebuilt with her father, Keim launched her turkey delivery mission a few years back after learning of a family living off the land nearby who had little for Thanksgiving dinner.
“They were telling me that a squirrel for dinner did not split very far between three people," Keim recalled. “At that moment, I thought ... ‘I’m going to airdrop them a turkey.'”
She decided not to stop there. Her effort has grown by word of mouth and by social media posts. This year, she's delivering 32 frozen turkeys to people living year-round in cabins where there are no roads.
All but two had been delivered by Tuesday, with delivery plans for the last two birds thwarted by Alaska’s unpredictable weather.
Among the beneficiaries are Dave and Christina Luce, who live on the Yentna River about 45 miles (72 kilometers) northwest of Anchorage. They have stunning mountain views in every direction, including North America's tallest mountain, Denali, directly to the north. But in the winter it's a 90-minute snowmobile ride to the nearest town, which they do about once a month.
“I’m 80 years old now, so we make fewer and fewer trips," Dave Luce said. “The adventure has sort of gone out of it.”
They've known Keim since she was little. The 12-pound (5.44-kilogram) turkey she delivered will provide more than enough for them and a few neighbors.
“It makes a great Thanksgiving,” Dave Luce said. “She’s been a real sweetheart, and she’s been a real good friend.”
Keim makes 30 to 40 turkey deliveries yearly, flying as far as 100 miles (161 kilometers) from her base north of Anchorage toward Denali's foothills.
Sometimes she enlists the help of a “turkey dropper” to ride along and toss the birds out. Other times, she’s the one dropping turkeys while her friend Heidi Hastings pilots her own plane.
Keim buys about 20 turkeys at a time, with the help of donations, usually by people reaching out to her through Facebook. She wraps them in plastic garbage bags and lets them sit in the bed of her pickup until she can arrange a flight.
“Luckily it’s cold in Alaska, so I don’t have to worry about freezers,” she said.
She contacts families on social media to let them know of impending deliveries, and then they buzz the house so the homeowners will come outside.
“We won’t drop the turkey until we see them come out of the house or the cabin, because if they don’t see it fall, they’re not going to know where to look,” she said.
It can be especially difficult to find the turkey if there’s deep snow. A turkey was once missing for five days before it was found, but the only casualty so far has been a lost ham, AP quoted Keim as saying.
Keim prefers to drop the turkey on a frozen lake if possible so it's easy to locate.
“As far as precision and hitting our target, I am definitely not the best aim,” she joked. “I’ve gotten better, but I have never hit a house, a building, person or dog.”
Her reward is the great responses she gets from families, some who record her dropping the turkeys and send her videos and texts of appreciation.
“They just think it’s so awesome that we throw these things out of the plane,” Keim said.
Ultimately, she hopes to set up a nonprofit organization to solicit more donations and reach people across a bigger swath of the state. And it doesn’t have to stop at turkeys.
“There’s so many kids out in the villages," she said. “It would be cool to maybe add a stuffed animal or something they can hold.”