Interview with Fina Solà, Vice President of Archivists without Borders International

by Daniel Oliveira

After attending the session “Archivists without Borders: a new vision for cooperation”, this Flying reporter interviewed Fina Solà, Vice-President of AwB international, and one of the most active voices in the field.  Over the course of the interview Ms. Solà shared her goals for building the AwB network, raising awareness, and to promoting the creation of new AwB sections in other countries.

What are the major challenges for Archivists without Borders International over the next years?

First of all, we intend to finish our ongoing projects. It is important that the association manages to end the work in process and move forward. We want to promote our vision and strategies around the world. We believe there is still a lot of work to be done and we cannot wait for things to happen. Our strategy will be the same, nevertheless an effort will be made to strengthen ties among Archivists without Borders sections. We prepared an international declaration that will be a starting point to achieve our goal. Every section will have to respect the document, while still keeping their freedom of activity. Each section will be represented by the same number of members during the Council meetings. To put it simply, everybody follows the same approach, so there will be a sense of unity. 

Does Archivists without Borders International benefit from the Archival Solidarity project?

The Archival Solidarity project and Archivists without Borders complement each other as they have different scopes. The first provides information about funding, partners or infrastructures while we are more operational.  An Archivists without Borders member serves as a representative in Archival Solidarity projects and we have a very close relation with the ICA’s SPA section that we hope it may be strengthened in the future.

What do you believe Archivists without Borders International can learn from the professional experience of other ONGs?

We do have a lot to learn and we have been using the knowledge and experience provided by other ONGs to our benefit. During the Archivists without Borders reorganisation process, we made several web searches and established contacts with different ONGs in order to have guidance and to make the right decisions. Moreover, most of the ONGs we know have the same types of problems or common practices as we do.  We are interested in keeping regular contacts that will be helpful to improve our work in areas such as training, projects, and seeking funding.