New Board Chair:
Doudou Diène

Memory Issues
in the News

Resources

February 2011

Protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square, February 10, 2011. Reuters/Dylan Martinez.

 

As calls for a break from past repressions ring out from Egypt to Libya, how can the lessons of history be tapped to envision new futures? What steps can historic Sites of Conscience in the Middle East and North Africa take to engage in democracy building? At this historic moment, will new Sites of Conscience such as Egypt's Tahrir Square, where so many protests took place, emerge?

At its first Middle East and North Africa Sites of Conscience workshop this May, the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience will debate and address these very questions.

The workshop, co-hosted in Morocco by the Coalition and the International Center for Transitional Justice, brings together Moroccan stakeholders and representatives from prominent memory initiatives in Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco and other countries to share their experiences, explore how they might work together, and develop recommendations for how the Coalition can support work in the region.

 

[Get Involved: email bgabriel@sitesofconscience.org]

 

 

Elsewhere around the world, Sites of Conscience continue to connect past and present, memory to action:

• The Liberation War Museum in Dhaka, Bangladesh recently orchestrated a 150 kilometer walkathon commemorating the route taken by Bangladeshi refugees who escaped from their homes on foot during the Liberation War in 1971. Beginning in Dhaka, ten volunteers set out for Sunamganj, in the northeast section the country, a journey of 17 days. Along the way they engaged children at fourteen partner schools in learning about the war.
  
  The walk was both symbolic and educational, serving as a mechanism to re-engage the Museum’s educational partners, spread the message of democracy, and address the human rights goals that are at the core of the Museum’s activities.
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  A visitor watched an oral history at Villa Grimaldi Peace Park. Image courtesy Villa Grimaldi.
• On January 26, Villa Grimaldi Peace Park in Santiago, Chile formally opened the Oral Archive of Villa Grimaldi, a collection of testimonies by Chileans who survived the brutal Pinochet regime of the 1970s and 80s.
  
    - Learn More
    - Watch a YouTube video about the project (in Spanish).
  
  The Oral Archive of Villa Grimaldi was supported in part by the International Coalition’s Project Support Fund.
• On March 2-4, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada hosts a three day conference in Vancouver on the history and legacy of Indian Residential Schools.  The conference will bring together organizations that have worked on efforts of healing and memory, including the International Coalition and several Sites of Conscience.
  
     - Learn More
  
  
  
  Estadio Nacional, one of the Sites funded through a recent Project Support Fund grant. Image courtesy Estadio Nacional.
• This quarter, Coalition members in Argentina, Italy, and Northern Ireland received funding from our Project Support Fund.
  
    - Learn more
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