São Paulo – Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik (Usek), in Jounieh, Lebanon, is working on a project to build a digital archive on Lebanese immigration to Latin America. In late February, preparations began for the gathering of documents in Argentina, with work in Brazil slated for the second half of the year, according to the director of Usek’s Latin American Studies and Cultures Center (Cecal), Roberto Khatlab, who has travelled to Buenos Aires and is currently in Brazil.
The digital archive will be part of the Usek Central Library and will be made available to the public online and free of charge. The plan is to scan immigration-related documents, records and photographs from Syrian-Lebanese clubs or from private collections.
The university intends to work via partnerships in each of the countries. In Argentina, the project will be carried out by Fundação Nínawa Daher, a foundation named after Nínawa Daher, an Argentinian journalist of Lebanese descent. She was popular in her country and died in a car crash in 2011. Among other things, the foundation publishes Daher’s writings.
Roberto Khatlab was in Argentina from February 20th to 26th, alongside the head of the Digitization Department at Usek’s Central Library, Georges Habchi, who is still in Argentina giving digitization training. Khatlab explains that the work will follow the international standards adopted by the Lebanese university.
In Argentina, the local ambassador of Lebanon, Antonie Andery, met with Khatlab and Habchi and called upon delegates from several Arab-related organizations to join the project. Data will be collected on the histories of Lebanon and of the countries the immigrants went to, says Khatlab.
In Brazil, no partner organization has been defined yet. However, Khatlab says community members who own old collections and would like to make them available to the project may contact him at robertokhatlab@usek.edu.lb.
The entire plan should require five to six years to be completed, according to Khatlab. The idea for the project was his own and had backing from Usek’s dean, Hady Mahfouz, and Central Library director, Joseph Mokarzel. The library that the Lebanese Cultural Heritage Digitization Project is connected with already has an area devoted to publications on Latin America.
While in São Paulo, this Wednesday (4th), Roberto Khatlab visited the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce headquarters and was welcomed by CEO Michel Alaby. Khatlab is a native of Brazil’s Paraná state, but lives in Lebanon.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
