OIA PRESS RELEASE

Yap State seal

Yap Cultural Preservation Efforts Receive 21K From US Ambassador Fund

Yap Dept of YCA (August 1, 2008) – The Department of Youth and Civic Affairs in Yap was notified of a $21, 000 grant award by the United States Embassy in Pohnpei for a project it submitted earlier this year for consideration under the East Asia and Pacific 2008 Ambassadors Funds for Cultural Preservation.  The project entails preservation of Yap’s culture through digitization of reel-to-reel recordings containing traditional dances, chants and stories. 

Yap Dancer; Artwork by Ruth Glenn Little “ruthglennlittle.com”

The joint project between the Yap State Archives and the Department’s division of Media, once complete, will enable citizens of the State of Yap to regain access to about 533 original and unique reel-to-reel, recordings of such vital data.  The project which is expected to take about a year to implement will require tedious work by the State Archive to first restore quality of the recordings before the digitizing and storing of the data on a server.

The Director of the Department, Mr. Larry Raigetal, expressed sincere gratitude to U.S. Ambassador Miriam Hughes for her support toward the project.  “This project is of extreme importance to us,” Raigetal said.  “Knowledge of traditional dances, chants, and stories are at risk of being lost forever.  For most of our young people, their focus is more on attaining a higher level of education than on learning traditional chants or listening to legends and stories.  To preserve these recordings is a fundamental component of ensuring that our cultural identity is intact for future generations.”