I'm suspicious of this fundraiser. How does it relate to the Tombouctou Manuscripts Project? [0]
The TMP has government funding from the South African government, University of Cape Town and Ford Foundation and was working to preserve and digitise the manuscripts before the war (and had built a new climate-controlled centre, the Ahmad Baba Institute, for the purpose in Timbuktu) and has been working to recover and restore those displaced by the fighting.
That the organisation which has been most responsible for preserving these manuscripts over the past decade isn't even mentioned once on the Indiegogo page is decidedly odd.
I've sent the Project team a heads-up about this and asked for some feedback, so I hope to have more information soon. In the meantime I recommend refraining from donating money to this until the background is cleared up. Hopefully it'll all turn out to be on the up and up.
The TMP has government funding from the South African government, University of Cape Town and Ford Foundation and was working to preserve and digitise the manuscripts before the war (and had built a new climate-controlled centre, the Ahmad Baba Institute, for the purpose in Timbuktu) and has been working to recover and restore those displaced by the fighting.
That the organisation which has been most responsible for preserving these manuscripts over the past decade isn't even mentioned once on the Indiegogo page is decidedly odd.
I've sent the Project team a heads-up about this and asked for some feedback, so I hope to have more information soon. In the meantime I recommend refraining from donating money to this until the background is cleared up. Hopefully it'll all turn out to be on the up and up.
[0]http://www.tombouctoumanuscripts.org/
Edit: It's also worth reading the TMP's official statement on what happened to the manuscripts after the rebel take-over: http://www.tombouctoumanuscripts.org/blog/entry/timbuktu_upd...