The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded $260,000 to the American University of Beirut for the Palestinian Oral History Archive (POHA) project. The project is a partnership between two entities at the American University of Beirut (AUB), the University Libraries and the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (IFI), as well as two external partners located in Lebanon, the Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts (AL-JANA) and the Nakba Archive (NA).
Under the NEH grant, the project will produce an online searchable digital platform featuring over 800 testimonies by first-generation Palestinians in Lebanon, hailing from over 150 uprooted communities in Palestine. POHA, which will be housed at the University Libraries of AUB, will digitize, index, catalog, preserve and make accessible over 1,000 hours of recorded audio and video material in the hope of stimulating research on and engagement in oral history, the experience of Palestinian refugees, and the modern history of the Middle East … read more.
This article was originally published in AUB News on April 1, 2016.
To find out more about the project please visit our webpage: http://www.aub.edu.lb/IFI/PROGRAMS/POHA/Pages/index.aspx.
For a glimpse into the ‘Palestinian Oral History Archives’ rich collection of the testimonies of first-generation Palestinian refugees in Lebanon watch this video Lest We Forget. The video was released on May 15, 2015, to mark the 67th Anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba.