It's Time Our Elders Wrote Down What They Know

Every few months, this newspaper reports on the passing of an elder described as 'the last person who remembered' some skill, story, or historical account. We treat each of these deaths as a tragedy, and then we move on, until the next one.

We have the tools now that our grandparents' generation never had: cheap recording devices, community volunteers with time, and diaspora relatives willing to fund small documentation projects. What we lack is urgency.

I am not asking for a grand national archive. I am asking every family with an elder over seventy to spend one afternoon with a phone recorder. That is the entire ask, and it is one we can meet starting this week.