April 2020
Baheerathy Kumarendiran started to work on a book project in 2017 on the topic of “how Tamil language education was developed in Norway by Tamils who migrated to Norway“. This project was started independently to document the local history of Tamils in Norway. It was not started as a project of DsporA Tamil Archive.
In that conjunction, she has been in contact with The Norwegian Institute of Local history (Norsk lokalhistorisk institutt – NLI) since 2018. On that basis on 22. April 2020 the NLI contacted her regarding re-activating the project on Norwegian-Tamil culture and history at lokalhistoriewiki.no.
On the same day of 22nd April 2020, she posted a Facebook post entitled “நோர்வேயில் தமிழ்க் கல்வி – இரண்டு கேள்விகள் கொண்ட தரவுத் திரட்டு” (meaning Tamil Education in Norway – a questionnaire with two questions) as a data collection for her book project. It was continued at the Facebook page “நோர்வே வாழ் தமிழர் ஆவணம் – Archive of Tamils in Norway“, which was started on 23rd April 2020. The Facebook page evolved to the website dspora.no, which was launched on 22nd July 2020. As well as the book project evolved into online article publishing.
NLI’s letter about Norwegian-Tamil culture and history project was made known to the Tamils living in Norway on 08th July 2020 through the Facebook page of “நோர்வே வாழ் தமிழர் ஆவணம் – Archive of Tamils in Norway“. This is NLI´s invitation letter to all Tamils to become a contributor in creating the Norwegian local Tamil history.
10. May 2020
“But what is ஆவணம் (aavanam)?” (aavanam meaning document in Tamil), asked Valarmathy Rasasingam, who saw the posts on the Facebook page “Archive of Tamils in Norway“. She pointed out that even the Tamil term «ஆவணம்» (aavanam) could be unknown for many. Based on her question, the article series of “what is «ஆவணம்» (aavanam)?” was started on 13th June 2020.
Series of article: What is “ஆவணம்” (aavanam)?
08. July 2020
Sanjayan Selvamanickam contacted DsporA Tamil Archive on 08th July 2020 for assistance to create an oral history interview guide to carry out oral history interviews in Norway. He is a Norway based volunteer for Noolaham foundation, who wanted to document the oral history of “migrated life of Tamils in Norway” in audiovisual format; and preserve the contributions at aavanaham.org.
The initiator of DsporA Tamil Archive has been interviewing the migrated Tamils in Norway to document local history of the development of Tamil education in Norway. It was not started as a project of DsporA Tamil Archive. Nevertheless, the prepared interview guide for the book project is modified and given here to meet the requested topic, “migrated life of Tamils in Norway”. This guide is created for the Norwegian-Tamil context. However, the questions in this guide can apply for Tamils in other diaspora countries. But it might be necessary to modify the questions to fit the context of other respective diaspora countries.
PDF │ Word
Read more about Oral history and its practical process.
19th July 2020
Vaseeharan Sivalingam contacted DsporA Tamil Archive and shared a common concern. He is the second generation of migrated Tamil from Eelam, who is a poet and the founder of Vaseeharan Creations Sivalingam and Norway Tamil Film Festival.
Tamils in Norway, as well as around the world, have published many books and other text documents in Tamil, and other languages about Tamil and Tamils. But there is a lack of Tamil books at Norwegian libraries. If we merely could collect and send all the books by Norwegian-Tamil authors, the library shelves for Tamil section will be filled up.
DsporA Tamil Archive contacted the National Library of Norway (NB) that has the assignment of legal deposit of all Norwegian publications and productions regardless of medium.
Read more about The National Library of Norway: Legal Deposit (Pliktavlevering) and its practical process.
27th August 2020
«Tamils in Canada», a Tamil organisation in Canada contacted DsporA Tamil Archive. They have taken their first initiative to find out the opportunities and procedures to archive their organisational archive in Canada.
Article: Tamils have taken the initiative to archive in Canada
22nd September 2020
“Nilavan” from Eelam contacted DsporA Tamil Archive and sent a request. He sent us a photo and asked how they could make this document readable and understandable.
Article: Preservation: Protects our rights
5th January 2021
Where and how do we start to archive?, asked a former activist of the Norway Tamil Coordinating Committee.
Updated: 01.03.2021
புலம்பெயர் தமிழ் ஆவணக்காப்பு 
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