Bahrain Wins 2024 COLAPESCE Award for Creative Excellence in Global Cultural Achievement

TDT | Manama

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Poet Ali Abdullah Khalifa has been awarded the prestigious COLAPESCE Award for Creative Excellence in Global Cultural Achievement for the year 2024 by the Center for Folk Heritage Studies at the University of Messina, one of the leading universities in southern Italy.

The award recognizes Khalifa’s outstanding research and contributions over more than fifty years in preserving his country’s folk heritage and connecting it to the intangible cultural heritage of the world. His early work, such as the guidebook he created for Danish Professor Paul Olson in 1963 and Swiss Professor Simon Gergi in 1966, marked the beginning of his journey. His significant fieldwork, which he conducted and encouraged in various regions of the Arabian Gulf, including the Dhofar and Suhar regions in Oman and the Wadi Al-Dawasir area in Saudi Arabia in 1978, also contributed to this recognition. Khalifa further supported the field through his editorial work on the Iraqi journal Folk Heritage and the founding of the Gulf States Folk Heritage Center in Qatar in 1981, funded by seven countries.

The award also acknowledges Khalifa's role in organizing four major international scientific conferences in Doha in 1983, which brought together top global academic experts to develop fieldwork collection plans and train locals in collection, documentation, and preservation techniques. These efforts led to the formation of numerous research teams that have worked since 1983 to gather the oral heritage of the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula, as well as the establishment of the peer-reviewed scientific journal Folk Lore in Qatar in 1985. Khalifa also founded the Popular Culture Archive for Studies, Research, and Publication in Bahrain in 2008, with support from His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The archive served as the foundation for Folk Culture, an internationally recognized journal that published peer-reviewed research in six languages for 17 years, distributed in 167 countries, and accessed by thousands through its website (www.folkculturebh.org).

The journal became a prominent academic resource, adopted by major global universities for faculty promotion. Its widespread recognition is considered one of the achievements of King Hamad’s reform project.

Professor Lelo Alessandro, the president of the award's judging committee, praised Khalifa’s extraordinary efforts, noting his active participation in major international organizations such as WIPO, ALICSO, and IOV. In 2016, Khalifa was unanimously elected as the first president of the International Organization of Folk Art (IOV) in Bergamo, Italy. He established the organization’s first presidential office in Manama, Bahrain, with local Bahraini staff. Additionally, he facilitated the sending of Bahraini students to pursue graduate studies in folklore in the UK, Egypt, and Tunisia. Khalifa also brokered an unprecedented agreement for cooperation between six international organizations, further aligning their goals and activities, which garnered special attention from UNESCO.