The South Caribe Roots Archive documents the people, places and events in southern Caribbean, Costa Rica, through family photographs and stories.

The project aims to work with the community to develop a digital information platform that is reflective of local knowledge, experience, and social justice objectives. 

1. Home Visit

Members of the Rich Coast Project team occasionally pay personal visits to the homes of community members to work with the individual collaborator to collect the photographs, documents, or memories they wish to contribute to the archive. Depending on the collections being offered to the archive, the RCP team brings with them the appropriate technology (scanner, camera, audio recorder, etc.).

Let us know you or someone you know would like to request a home visit:

2. Email

Some collaborators are located far away and/or have either already digitized their personal collections or have access to the technology necessary to do so. In this case, we accept submissions of photographs via email to caribearchive@gmail.com. Once the files have been received, an RCP team member will follow up to collect more details and information about the photographs submitted. 

3. Scanning Station

We have partnered with the local copy center Libreria Caribe to provide a stable local scanning station. Contributors can bring the photographs and documents they wish to contribute directly to Sonia and the staff of the Libreria Caribe, who have been trained on scanning and uploading according to our collection and processing guidelines.

4. Local Events

We occasionally host local archiving events in order to both collect additional archival material and share existing SCRA collections. These events allow us to create space in the community for collective memory and collect additional information from attendees. Check out the events page for more information.