30 new grants awarded in fifth round of funding

The Modern Endangered Archives Program, an initiative of the UCLA Library, is thrilled to announce 30 new grants for documentation and digitization projects. These projects expand our growing portfolio of communities and archives around the world working to preserve at-risk cultural heritage material with MEAP funding.

The program was launched in 2018 with support from Arcadia(opens in a new tab) a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. To date, it has supported 116 projects in 53 countries.

Expanding geographic breadth

The new MEAP cohort strengthens established themes across MEAP collections, adding to topics including the struggle for Human Rights(opens in a new tab), music and oral traditions, the push for greater rights for women, the history of photography and visual culture(opens in a new tab), and more.

These new projects will direct MEAP funds to eight new countries, including Bhutan, Venezuela, Philippines, Trinidad and Tobago, Tanzania, Mozambique, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Ukraine, expanding the geographic breadth and material diversity of both established and new collection themes. As seen by the recent invasion of Ukraine and earthquakes in Turkey and Morocco, the world’s cultural heritage is under continual threat from war, political uncertainty, environmental disaster, and more. Digitization allows geographically dispersed collections to remain in their home countries and still speak to each other, crossing international and regional boundaries to illuminate intersecting ideas and experiences.

Facilitating access

Open access to these new projects will allow for new lines of scholarly inquiry, facilitate communal exploration, and encourage public dialogue. As MEAP grantee Daniella Drucoff from the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Argentina) said, “Digitization will not only strengthen the dissemination of these important narratives and experiences, but also facilitate their study and research, thereby fostering the preservation of memory, the pursuit of truth and justice, and the primary goal of locating the individuals who remain kidnapped or disappeared."

Other new MEAP grantees have echoed this sentiment, noting how MEAP funds will allow them to ensure their communal history is preserved and accessible to future generations. Grantee Luiza Batista, President of FENATRAD, the Brazilian Domestic Workers Union, noted, "It is extremely important for us at FENATRAD to have our archives organized and digitized. It is a means of preserving our history of struggle as a national union federation." FENATRAD was the recipient of an MEAP Planning Grant in 2021 to organize and document the organization's collections. Now that the initial survey and inventory has been completed, the team is ready to move on to digitization.

New Call for Applications, Expanded Opportunities

MEAP funds enable documentation and digitization for at-risk cultural heritage materials, empowering communities and collection holders to preserve and make accessible valuable evidence of community experiences and historical documents. As MEAP moves into its sixth year, we are proud to launch a new Call for Applications that expands opportunities for funding. New in 2023! Planning Grants can now budget up to $20,000 for organization and inventory work and Project Grants can budget up to $70,000 for digitization and metadata creation.

New Regional Grants now allow past grant holders to expand on previous digitization efforts. Grants of up to $100,000 allow institutions to activate the networks they have built by creating digital collections that include cultural heritage materials from three or more institutions, families, or archival repositories. Regional grants will allow communities and archives to create digital collections that connect thematically related materials and enable findability for collections that are not physically held in one location.

For those seeking funding to preserve, digitize, and publish unique collections, the Modern Endangered Archives Program the 2023-24 Call for Applications is now live with preliminary applications due November 13, 2023.

PROJECT GRANTS

Building Democracy: Culture, Political Rights and Social Transformations in Venezuela’s Twentieth Century as seen through the weekly magazine Élite (1925-1998) (Venezuela)
Host Institution: Fundación Red de Historia Digital Venezolana
Project Leads: Marcus Golding, Guillermo Guzman

Lost Villages of the Upper Euphrates: A Digital Archive (Türkiye)
Host Institution: British Institute at Ankara (BIAA)
Project Leads: Martyn Weeds, Nurdan Atalan

Preserving Bhutan’s Himalayan Musical Heritage: Digitizing Musical, Cultural, and Sacred Traditions (Bhutan)
Host Institution: Music of Bhutan Research Centre
Project Lead: Sonam Dorji

Preserving the Oral Cultural Heritage of the Murui, Magütá and Miraña Peoples of the Amazon: Digital Archive of the Indigenous Languages of the Amazon = Archivo Digital de las Lenguas Indígenas de la Amazonia (ARDILIA) (Colombia)
Host Institution: Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Project Lead: Juan Alvaro Echeverria

Visual Histories of Northeast India: Digitizing Anthropological Photographs of Ahmad Hossain (India)
Host Institution: University of California Los Angeles
Project Lead: Aparna Sharma

Memories of Resistance: A Digital Archive of Chile’s Graphic Resistance (Chile)
Host Institution: University of Liverpool
Project Leads: Marieke Riethof, Andrew Redden, Richard Smith

Historical Memory of Brazil's National Federation of Domestic Workers (Brazil)
Host Institution: FENATRAD
Project Leads: Meg Weeks, Joaze Bernardino-Costa

Hamilton Studio, Bombay: the first twenty years after partition (India)
Host Institution: Coventry University
Project Leads: Ben Kyneswood, Ajita Madhavji

Women's and Labour Movements, Adult and Higher Education in Nigeria (Nigeria)
Host Institution: Ogunsheye Foundation, IFRA Nigeria
Project Leads: Sara Panata, Segun Ogusheye, Abodsede George, Olutayo Adesina

Brochures of Theatre Productions in Post Independence India (India)
Host Institution: Natarang Pratishthan
Project Leads: Kirti Jain, Rashmi Vajpeyi, C.S. Yoganada

Digitization of the graphic and audiovisual memory of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Argentina)
Host Institution: Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo
Project Leads: Daniela Drucaroff, Matteo Maiorana

The House of Afro-Uruguayan Culture (Uruguay)
Host Institution: Asociación Profundación para las Ciencias Sociales (University of the Republic, Uruguay)
Project Leads: Alex Borucki, Diego Sempol, Isabel Wschebor, Edgardo Ortuñe

The Lloyd Best Archive: The Trinidad and Tobago Review (Republic of Trinidad and Tobago)
Host Institution: Watkinson Library at Trinity College
Project Lead: Christina Bleyer

Preserving Heritage: Analog Images from the National Museum of Mali's Audio-Visual Archive (Mali)
Host Institution: The Research Foundation for The State University of New York
Project Leads: Barbara Frank, Daouda Keita, Joseye Tienro, Safiatu Sangare

Preserving Political Cartoons in Guinea: The Archives of Le Lynx (Guinea)
Host Institution: University of Virginia, Karsh Institute of Democracy
Project Leads: Bremen Donovan, Nomi Dave

An Intermedia Hindi-Urdu Archive of Cinema in South Asia (India)
Host Institution: Centre for the Study of developing Societies (CSDS)
Project Leads: Ravi Kant, Prabhat Kumar

Digitizing and curating of Eloyi audio cassette recordings (Nigeria)
Host Institution: Eloyi Foundation
Project Leads: David Egya, Sule Emmanuel Egya

Safeguarding Ukrainian Heritage of Amateur Films and Home Movies (Ukraine)
Host Institution: Stichting Nederlands Instituut Voor Beeld En Geluid
Project Leads: Oleksandr Makhanets, Rasa Bocyte

PLANNING GRANTS

Struggles of a People Under a Dictatorship: Bantiayog Archives (Philippines)
Host Institution: Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation, Inc.
Project Leads: May Rodriguez, Jocelyn Ladlad

Ameen Sayani’s Archive of South Asian Commercial Radio Broadcasting (India)
Host Institution: Columbia University, MESAAS
Project Lead: Isabel Huacuja Alonso

Frank Jolles Collection of Zulu Arts and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (South Africa)
Host Institution: Phansi Museum
Project Leads: Elizabeth Perrill, Nontobeko Mkhise, Ntuthuko Khuzwayo

Creating a Catalogue of Printed Heritage in Faizabad Public Library (Afghanistan)
Host Institution: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften
Project Leads: Fiona Katherine Smith, Chorshanbe

Favelas.br in Maré (Brazil)
Host Institution: Kultur. Arte e Educação
Project Leads: Daniel McDonald, Jean Camoleze, Rodrigo Bonciani

Documenting the Endangered Zoological Collections of Avifauna and Small Mammals of Mweka Museum, Tanzania (Tanzania)
Host Institution: College of African Wildlife Management, Mweka
Project Leads: Bavo Bernard, Rudolf F. Mremi

Archivo Fotográfico de la Araucanía (Chile)
Host Institution: Villarrica Diocesan Archives and Museum Foundation
Project Leads: María José Vial Lyon, Cecilia Romero Aguirre

Sarajevo Under Siege: A Visual Art Archive (Bosnia-Herzegovina)
Host Institution: Historijski Muzej Bosne i Hercegovine
Project Leads: Ewa Kumelowski, Elma Hašimbegović, Elma Hodžić

Archives of Siraiki Cultural and Political History in Pakistan (Pakistan)
Host Institution: University of Malaya
Project Leads: Nukhbah Taj Langah, Yanti Idaya Aspura

Nation, Pedagogy & Cinema: The University of the Philippines Film Institute AV Archives Collections 1966-1995 (Philippines)
Host Institution: University of the Philippines Film Institute
Project Leads: Adjani Arumpac, Adrian D. Mendizabal, Angela C. Chaves, Arnulfo Junio

Clearing the dusty voices: Sound archives at the Center of African Studies in Maputo (1979-1990) (Mozambique)
Host Institution: Center for African Studies, Eduardo Mondlane University
Project Lead: Carlos Fernandes