Mia Farrow donates Darfur videos to UConn to help keep record of refugees' customs

(CBS) Activist and actress Mia Farrow has donated a 35-hour video collection, in which she documented the customs and rituals of the Darfur refugees, to the University of Connecticut. The items are available for viewing at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the university.

Pictures: Mia Farrow on a mission

According to Valerie Love, former curator for human rights and alternative press collections, UConn is one of four universities that has a dedicated human rights archives that specifically documents past violations and current conditions. Love helped make the deal that allowed Farrow's work to be housed in the university.

Farrow told The Hartford Courant that the videos captured demonstrations of farming methods, children's stories, wedding ceremonies and traditional dances and songs. She hopes that by preserving the footage at UConn, the children of the refugees will have a way to remember their heritage. Farrow has been recording the Darfuris' stories and rituals since 2003.

The actress also posted a video on YouTube and on the UConn website explaining why she believes it is important to record the stories of the people of Darfur. "It's not a culture where archiving and preserving is really part of anything they know. (I'm) filming these songs, dances, all the things that are lost in a genocide, to show people what a remarkable people the people of Darfur are," she said in the video.