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A nation without an archive,
it's like eyes without a sight.
The UNHCR says 43 million people have been forced from
their homes,
globally.
And 15 million people, no-one knows where they are.
Imagine,
if you're on this planet,
but you're not being counted, and no-one knows where you're at.
Somali documentary project we started 2003 in Columbus, Ohio. And
the mission of the project is to archive Somali diaspora, globally.
We say, if an elder dies,
a whole library dies.
If you don't record the elders' stories, if this person dies, then whole library dies.
What we were trying to do is to capture what
they're going through mentally and physically.
In 1997, in 1995, in 2000,
there was Somali community in Minneapolis, there was Somali community
in Maine, in Columbus, Ohio, in Germany, in Dubai, in South Africa, in South America,
in Far East Asia, in Sri Lanka, in Bengal.
If this continues without any archive,
how do you
talk about those things?
When we talking with people, interviewing them,
when you leave that moment, then you just become the channel where they can tell
their story through you.
And you hope you have the respect and dignity for them to tell their story as
they told you.
They might be in this condition of chaos and disaster,
but I think that they have more
skills for survival
than most of us. The resilience of the refugees, it gives me strength,
myself.