Converts unicode characters to ASCII character equivalents.
    For example: "på fédéral" becomes "pa federal".

def convert_to_ascii(statement):
    """
    Converts unicode characters to ASCII character equivalents.
    For example: "på fédéral" becomes "pa federal".
    """
    import unicodedata

    text = unicodedata.normalize('NFKD', statement.text)
    text = text.encode('ascii', 'ignore').decode('utf-8')

    statement.text = str(text)
    return statement