The National Centre for Arts and Culture in collaboration with the Gerda Henkel Foundation, Germany will on Tuesday 18th October organize a symposium in honour the founder of the NCAC Oral Archives late Mr Alhaji Bakari Kebba Sidibe who died in 2021 at the Senegambia Beach Hotel.
The Director General of National Centre for Arts and Culture Mr Hassoum Ceesay said “National Digital Archives of The Gambia” project is a multi-modal digital resource in education and academic research as well as a means for the promotion of Gambian culture in the media and tourism sector. Adding that the project started in 2016 in partnership with the University of Hamburg for better preservation and accessibility to students and researchers has digitized thousands of tapes and files.
“Since 2016, the digitization project of the Research and Documentation Division (RDD) Archives for better preservation and accessibility to students and researchers. We have digitized thousands of tapes and files”, he said.
The Historian revealed that symposium will not only commemorate the successful collaboration and achievements but will also again pay tribute to the history and founders of the NCAC/RDD archive. Adding that this initiates the start into a new phase in which the National Digital Archive shall function as a multi-modal digital resource in education and academic research as well as a means for the promotion of Gambian culture.
He added that “at the start of the digitizing project in 2016, NCAC and partners held a big confab of historians, and now that the project has been completed, NCAC and our German partners are again bringing together a dozen of historians and university dons from The Gambia, USA, UK, Nigeria, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Senegal, Ghana and Germany who will present latest research on African and Gambian history relevant to oral tradition, heritage and contemporary issues like land disputes, digital archiving and tourism.
Source: Ministry of Tourism and Culture.
