Engaging Civil Society on theRelevance of the Peace Museum in Building Peace and a Culture of Human Rights in Sierra Leone
Special Court for Sierra Leone (Sierra Leone)

Virtual Museum of Courage and Resistance
Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (Philippines)

Adolescents, Identities, and Institutional Violence: Interpretations of the Past in the Present
Archivo Provincial de la Memoria (Argentina)

This Tour is Joke!: The People’s History of Chicago
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum (USA)

Address America 2012

(National Constitution Center, U.S.A.)

In the year of a hotly debated U.S. presidential election, the National Constitution Center (NCC) is creating a safe space for voters and future voters to share their election-year concerns and priorities. Address America 2012 will encourage museum visitors, both in-person and online, to draft and share a six-word “stump speech” expressing their priorities for the presidential candidates and a subsequent six-word Inaugural Address of their vision for the future.

Visitors and students can share their speeches in three different ways. Social media technology available on both the project’s website and in kiosks throughout the museum’s permanent exhibit will attract young voters to submit and share their six-word speeches. Visitors can then view synthesized information from their peers’ speeches in online visuals –  graphs, maps, and word clouds  - that reveal trends in election priorities across geography, gender, generation, and more. Museum staff will also travel through major U.S. cities hosting party conventions and candidate debates to capture the six-word speeches of everyday people on the street. These videos will be paired with the virtual submissions and hosted on Comcast’s ‘Own The Vote’ website. Finally, the NCC will prepare and disseminate an Address America 2012 curriculum for students in grades 6-12 to help prepare an informed and engaged generation of future voters.

The National Constitution Center develops and executes programming on the U.S. Constitution to inspire  citizen engagement. Located in view of Philadelphia’s famed Independence Hall where the Constitution and its precursor, the Declaration of Independence, came to life in the 18th century, the NCC explores this historical expansion of the meaning of “We the people” to ensure equal citizenship for groups once excluded – women, African Americans, Native Americans and other minorities.

(Image courtesy of the National Constitution Center)

Foot or Root?

(Istituzione Musei del Mare e delle Migrazioni – Mu.MA, Italy)

Over the past three decades, Italy has undergone a major transformation from emigrant nation to immigrant destination. Between 1970 and today, the number of immigrants living in Italy has increased ten-fold, resulting in highly publicized  racial violence and xenophobia. Drawing on the success of Navigating Difference in 2011, Mu.MA’s new program Foot or Root aims to prepare young people to alter the course of ethnic relations for the future in an increasingly complex and diverse nation.

Located in the port city of Genoa, Mu.MA will develop a Teachers’ Toolkit to help prepare students ages 14-18 to visit Memoria e Migrazioni, a permanent exhibit that explores the impact of migration on Italian society through reconstructions of emigrants’ destinations like Buenos Aires, the Brazilian jungle, and Ellis Island. A final section dedicated to contemporary immigration to Italy provides a comparison between the past and present.  After viewing the exhibit, students will engage in dialogue on immigration issues stemming from their own family histories and identities.  Students will then work in groups using different types of media to answer the question, “What does immigration mean to you?” These images will be curated by the Mu.MA staff into a public exhibition on display at the Museum’s entrance.

Mu.MA is a historical maritime museum that presents the sea as a bridge between continents, countries, and cultures. Aboard two boats once used to carry African migrants to Italy, visitors ‘meet’ the immigrants and their families, learn about their histories and home countries, see what they eat and where they work.

New Visions of History: Developing Oral Archives

(Peer Exchange: Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos, Chile / Memoria Abierta, Argentina)

Oral archives, like those at Memoria Abierta in Argentina, contain memories of personal experiences that can offer visions of history not always present in written documents. As a museum dedicated to social change through ethical reflection on Chilean history, El Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (MMDH) now seeks to establish its own oral archive—modeled on that of Memoria Abierta—to ensure that the Chilean state’s systematic abuse of human rights from 1973 to 1990 is not forgotten and never again repeated.

Through peer exchange, MMDH staff will gain a deeper understanding of Memoria Abierta’s experience in identifying, gathering, and disseminating oral testimonies from survivors of state terrorism in Argentina and its aftermath.  MMDH’s Collections and Research team will spend one week shadowing Memoria Abierta staff to better understand and assess the methodologies, policies, and challenges that led to the successful creation of Memoria Abierta’s oral archives, and thus, create their own archive.

Following the example of Memoria Abierta, the MMDH oral archives will constitute a fundamental contribution to the documentation, study and interpretation of history, too often silenced in Chilean public discourse, in order to enrich democratic cultures of human rights and to promote a social conscience that values active memory.

Memory and Citizenry: an Intensive Course in Human Rights Education

(Memorial da Resistência de São Paulo, Brazil)

Despite broadening social justice discourse in Brazil, the defense of human rights continues to be publicly associated with impunity, a fear rooted in the country’s history of dictatorship.  Through its new Memory and Citizenry course, Memorial da Resistência seeks to counter this trend by training one hundred formal and informal educators across Brazil in the concepts and methodologies of Human Rights Education, ensuring early and constant exposure to human rights and democracy for the new generation.

The program will stimulate participants’ critical reflection on Brazil’s past through discussion and exchange, then utilize the multiplier effect of these educators to disseminate the values of human rights and citizenry to their communities.  The goal is to help teachers and influencers create widespread active learning opportunities that transform young people’s understanding of history in order to build a culture of human rights for the future. A digital compilation of the educators’ course will be made available through El Memorial’s website to systematize HRE knowledge and guarantee wide-ranging access to educators and others.

El Memorial is housed at the former offices of the Department of Social and Political Order of São Paulo State, one of the most gruesome political police forces in the country during the military regime. The only site remembering the dictatorship currently open to the public, El Memorial uses the history of detention and resistance to help visitors recognize that human rights abuses can occur in many forms and at any social level, and encourages citizens to stand-up against oppression and apathy in their own social, political, and cultural contexts.

Promoting Pluralism and Justice: Women’s Rights as Human Rights

(Jamalpur Gandhi Ashram, Bangladesh)

Through its new, multi-faceted project Human Rights: Promoting Pluralism and Justice, the Jamalpur Gandhi Ashram aims to bolster the rights and opportunities of women in Bangladesh. “Though women in Bangladesh constitute nearly half of the population, they are deprived of their basic human rights everywhere in our country,” says Utpal Kanti Dhar, director of the Ashram.  “Each day, women face intimidation, discrimination and maltreatment in every sphere of their lives.” The Ashram’s new solidarity program will include both internal components to inspire and unite women from diverse backgrounds, and external portions to raise awareness of women’s rights and opportunities in the wider community.

Dialogue programs at the Ashram will bring together women from various ethnic and religious communities to explore issues of women’s rights and roles in order to broaden the understanding of women’s rights as human rights. Subsequent collaborative projects will unite these women across cultural boundaries to stand up to injustice and play an active role in community issues that affect them directly as women. A selection of the participants will then visit the Ashram to learn the history of their community and identify ways to connect this history with contemporary issues. Additional cultural programs for the community-at-large will draw attention to women’s rights and histories through public lectures, musical performances, and theatrical productions.

The Ashram is a historic sanctuary established in Jamalpur in the 1930s following the principles of the non-violence and non-cooperation movement led by Mahatma Gandhi. After the partition of India in 1947 and the emergence of Pakistan, the school, vocational training centers, health facilities, and other infrastructures of the Ashram were demolished. Only the office cottage survived the brutal attack; it remains the center of all activities of the Ashram. The Freedom Struggle Museum was established alongside the Ashram in 2007 to uphold the history of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

Patriots and Peacemakers

(Arab American National Museum, USA)

Who is an American? What does it mean to ‘serve’?

The Arab American National Museum (AANM) will examine these and other questions in its Patriots and Peacemakers dialogue project, focusing on the service of Arab Americans’ in the U.S. military, diplomatic missions, and Peace Corps. The project aims to explore individual and collective views on issues of citizenship and service.

Visitors will embark on a tour of AANM starting with a multi-media installation including the stories of Arab American men and women who have served the United States in various capacities. As they continue through the museum, visitors will encounter artifacts from Arab American culture set against a timeline of United States political history beginning with the American Revolutionary War. These artifacts and their backdrop provide a context  for facilitated discussion amongst participants to help them make connections between the stories shared in the exhibits and larger issues of immigration and exclusion today. The tour concludes in the Honor Garden, a centrally located square that allows museum-goers to place notes and photographs in honor of all who have served and provides a quite space to sit, write, and reflect.

The first and only museum dedicated to Arab American history and culture, AANM is located in the heart of the Arab American community of Dearborn, Michigan. In its unique capacity, AANM tells the stories of Arab Americans through comprehensive exhibits and public programming to foster greater understanding of the plurality of Arab culture and the diversity among Arab Americans.

Memories of Political Repression in Chile: Human Rights Across the Disciplines

(Fundacion 1367, Casa Memoria Jose Domingo Cañas, Chile)

Developed by Casa Memoria José Domingo Cañas (Casa Memoria), Memories of Political Repression in Chile: Human Rights Across the Disciplines will guide college students in exploring the history of political repression in Chile from the perspective of a broad range of disciplines, including psychology, history, politics, sociology and more.

Through strategic alliances with Chilean institutions of higher education, Casa Memoria will implement a human rights component in college courses spanning many fields of study. The program will provide historical research materials from Casa Memoria’s José Martí Documentation Center on themes of resistance, human rights, women’s rights, and the oppression of Native Indians, then invite students to tour the site and discuss these issues from their own academic perspectives. This project culminates in participatory workshops and panels where the students will present their research and its impact on their fields. Casa Memoria intends for students to carry this knowledge with them into future careers in order to broaden understanding of human rights, repression, and resistance.

Casa Memoria highlights the memory of human rights violations during the Chilean military dictatorship, thereby contributing to the promotion and defense of these rights in both contemporary Chile and the broader international community. By promoting and safeguarding historical memory in Chile and across the globe, Casa Memoria teaches new generations about what happened in Chile to ensure that such horror is never again repeated.

Who Chooses? - Matilda Joslyn Gage Center, USA

In a year of tense debate on reproductive rights from Mississippi’s Proposition 26 to the Institute of Medicine’s official recommendation to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, the Matilda Joslyn Gage Center’s “Who Chooses?” program  will invite diverse groups–including churches and religious groups, pro- and anti-abortion activists, elected officials, attorneys, and  women’s service organizations–to exchange and discuss ideas on contemporary reproductive rights in a safe environment. By framing the conversation in Gage’s historical writings on women’s rights, “Who Chooses?” boldly confronts one of the most controversial and divisive issues in the U.S. today.

As its project title suggests, the Gage Center will avoid polarizing questions like “Are you for or against abortion?” and instead provide open-ended discussion prompts like “Who chooses if a woman should or should not have a child?”  The Gage Center will also attempt to address the widespread misinformation surrounding reproductive rights by creating an informative brochure, which will include the writings of Matilda Joslyn Gage, as well as those of other important women thinkers.

The Matilda Joslyn Gage Center, located in Fayetteville, NY, works to uphold the legacy of suffragist and social justice advocate Matilda Joslyn Gage. The Gage Center uses Gage’s former home to relate the history of the numerous social movements in which she was involved, including the women’s rights movement, the abolition of slavery, and freedom of religion.

Everyday Items Transformed by Conflict - Healing Through Remembering, Northern Ireland

How can we reconcile the past despite conflicting narratives? How do we display and understand the differing impacts of a single period in history? How can we use remnants of this complicated past to teach and inspire future generations?

Healing Through Remembering (HTR) will address these and other questions with the project-exhibition “Everyday Items Transformed by Conflict.” Over 70 museum collectors will be invited to actively engage in the construction of the exhibit by lending an item from their own collection and participating in a facilitated dialogue on its design. The items displayed will represent the wide variety of sources, perspectives, and views of the conflict in and about Northern Ireland to trigger future conversations among diverse constituents. It explores how objects and artifacts tell a story in a museum setting, and how to address the curation process when multiple, conflicting narratives are at play.

Healing Through Remembering (HTR) is a network of individuals with diverse political, social, and religious views and backgrounds who share the goal of appropriately dealing with and remembering the past related to the conflict in Northern Ireland. “Everyday Items Transformed by Conflict” is just one step in  Healing Through Remembering’s effort to develop a Living Memorial Museum, which will remember the conflict in Northern Ireland in order to build a better future.

Tolerance Education at the Krue Se Mosque-  Nonviolence International Southeast Asia, Thailand 

On April 28, 2004, 32 people were killed at the Krue Se Mosque in Southern Thailand as a result of government action against suspected Muslim insurgents. A committee of inquiry ruled that the military had used excessive force against the suspected militants, who were in hiding and armed only with knives. The incident, now know as the Krue Se Massacre, was one of three that day which together left over 100 people dead.

Marking the seventh anniversary of the massacre, Nonviolence International Southeast Asia has developed a peace education program to help understand and process this and other tragic histories. The multifaceted program brings together local educators to discuss the nature and impact of varied perspectives and personal narratives of the 2004 event. Following the discussion, a workshop invites the educators to build on these ideas to develop teaching models that embrace diversity, dialogue, and tolerance for children 7-12 years old.

Nonviolence International was founded in 1989 with the intent to provide assistance to individuals, organizations, and governments seeking nonviolent means to bring about social and political change which reflects truth and justice. Nonviolence International Southeast Asia (NISEA), established in 1992, is guided by the underlying assumption that conflicts are inevitable and will continue to exist; yet, violence is not the solution to resolving conflict. NISEA envisions an empowered society for whom nonviolence is the norm in dealing with conflicts.

Circuito De La Memoria (Path of Memory) - Estadio Nacional, Chile 

“There is no society without identity, and there is no identity without memory,” writes the Regional Metropolitan Association of Former Political Prisoners. The group seeks to harness this memory with guided tours for students and other visitors to Estadio Nacional, a sports stadium – turned – detention center under Chiles’s dictatorship. Used as a concentration camp, political prison, and torture center at the height of the junta regime, Estadio Nacional again functions as a public sports stadium despite detention cells and other instruments of repression still lining its interior.

The Regional Metropolitan Association of Former Political Prisoners, a survivors’ group seeking to preserve the historical memory and lessons of Estadio Nacional, has spent years lobbying for its story to be told to spectators often unaware of the Stadium’s magnitude. In March and April 2011, new Stadium tour guides received training in Human Rights and crimes against humanity, dictatorship, and the history of Chile’s Unidad Popular government to help interpret the stadium’s history to the public for the first time. Spectators and visitors are encouraged to connect the site’s dark past to contemporary issues in Chile and around the world.

In the aftermath of the September 1973 coup d’état that overthrew the Government of Chilean President Salvador Allende, the National Stadium of Santiago (Estadio Nacional) became the largest “concentration camp” in Chile. It is estimated that over 40,000 people spent time in Estadio Nacional during the junta regime. The Regional Metropolitan Association of Former Political Prisoners works to preserve Estadio Nacional and its historical memory.

Levine Museum
School closings and re-segregations, increasing poverty levels, and the growing isolation of African-American and Latino students from whites in the Charlotte, North Carolina region prompted the Levine Museum to develop a new project that would prompt intergroup trust and equal educational opportunity.

“Courage in the City: Educational Equity in the Multicultural South” will create a dialogue model to spark discussion across racial and ethnic boundaries on issues of social justice and public education. The dialogue sessions, targeted to representatives of African-American and Latino community groups, will complement two key exhibitions hosted by the Levine Museum: COURAGE: The Carolina Story that Changed America (based on the first lawsuit in America challenging racial segregation in public schools) and PARA TODOS LOS NIÑOS: Fighting Segregation before Brown (about the 1946 Mendez case, which ended school segregation for Mexicans and Mexican Americans in California).

The exhibitions will provide the catalyst to engage participants in personal reflection and facilitated group discussion on today’s pressing civic issues and on personal stories of courage in the midst of community change and conflict. With this project, the Levine Museum will model ways to discuss difficult issues across difference with respect and civility.

Nonviolence International Southeast Asia
At the Krue Se Mosque in the Southern Thai on April 28, 2004, 32 persons were killed as a result of a government action against suspected Muslim insurgents. This incident, now know as the Krue Se Massacre, is one of the bloodiest in Southern Thailand’s history.

Marking the seventh anniversary of the massacre, Nonviolence International Southeast Asia will develop a peace education program to help understand this and other tragic histories. The multifaceted program will bring together local educators to discuss varied perspectives and personal narratives of the 2004 event. The discussion will be followed by a workshop in which educators will develop teaching modules on tragic events for children 7-12 years old that embrace diversity, dialogue and tolerance. These modules will be tested at the Krue Se Mosque, a proposed Site of Conscience.

“Concept and Plan Development for the Memory Center for Reconciliation” (Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional, Guatemala)
Between 1960 and 1996, Guatemala experienced a gruesome civil war that left over 200,000 dead. This number includes roughly 45,000 missing persons who were detained by the Guatemalan government and police forces. Although the war ended 15 years ago, Guatemala is still scarred by violence, and the rampant discrimination and social inequality that helped to fuel it still remain.

In an amazing stroke of luck, the archive of the Guatemalan National Police was discovered intact in 2005. The archive contains millions of documents saved by the National Police, dating from 1892 until the end of the civil war in 1996. The Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional (AHPN) has worked tirelessly to preserve, organize and scan these documents in an effort to make them widely available. They offer the general public the opportunity to learn the truth about the war, and they give prosecutors and other interested parties new hope of bringing those responsible for crimes against humanity to justice.

The Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional is now ready to take their mission one step further – by creating a center of memory on the site where the archives were found. The site operated for many years as a workspace for the National Police and is suspected of having been used as a clandestine prison and torture center during the civil war. The project “Concept and Plan Development for the Memory Center for Reconciliation” will do exactly what its name purports – create a foundation for the proposed Site of Conscience. The project will include an extensive consultative process in which the AHPN will gain input from interested parties as well as learn from the experience of other Sites of Conscience and memory centers in the region. It will also bring in the community, including local students, to learn the history and help develop the site. The “Memory Center for Reconciliation” will be the first of its kind in Guatemala, as no other site currently remembers the victims of the war.

“Campaign for Human Rights, Peace and Tolerance” (Gandhi Ashram Trust, Bangladesh)
Alarmed by child marriage, domestic violence and illegal divorce in the Noakhali district of Bangladesh, and witnessing the ineffectiveness of the local government in addressing these human rights violations, the Gandhi Ashram Trust (GAT) is undertaking an extensive campaign to change this situation from the bottom up.

GAT is a civil society organization that works to improve the standards of living in Noakhali, particularly for the most disadvantaged members of the community. Their work is both inspired by and centered around the philosophy of Mohandas Gandhi.

Their project, “Campaign for Human Rights, Peace and Tolerance,” will confront the various human rights violations prevalent in their community from multiple fronts.

The project has three main goals: to raise awareness among community members of their human rights and their role in securing these rights, to build the institutional capacity of the local elected government, and to sensitize students and youth to human rights issues. To meet these goals, GAT will undertake a variety of activities. First, GAT will organize on-going meetings for groups of disadvantaged community members. In these meetings, GAT staff members will facilitate discussions around current human rights issues, the freedom struggle of Bangladesh, and Gandhi’s nonviolence movement. Next, GAT will choose a community leader in each group and train him or her in relevant human rights conventions and the laws of Bangladesh. GAT also plans on organizing popular theater shows that comment on common human rights violations in the community, creating mobile museum shows on Gandhi’s nonviolence movement, and organizing meetings with the Union Parishad, the lowest tier of local government in Bangladesh.

“Promoting Public Debate on Socio-Political Issues” (Gulag Museum at Perm-36, Russia)
The Gulag Museum at Perm-36, one of the founding members of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, works to preserve the memory of the political repression and state terror that occurred in the USSR under the totalitarian government. Located in a former Soviet prison camp, the Gulag Museum at Perm-36 uses the history of the site, along with various public programs and civic forums, to promote democratic values and address human rights violations in contemporary Russia. Every year, the Museum holds the international civic forum Pilorama, which includes panels and public discussions on pressing social and political issues and in the past has also included theatrical, musical and artistic components.

This year, with help from the Coalition’s Project Support Fund, the Gulag Museum at Perm-36 will use new technologies to further the reach of their international civic forum. Their project, “Promoting Public Debate on Socio-Political Issues,” aims to make all Pilorama 2011 debates available online. They will record all of Pilorama programs and make them available on a website and on social network sites. Text versions of the debates will also be made available.. The project will allow the Pilorama to reach a whole new audience, on both a national and international level, and allow the conversation to continue even after the forum is over.

“Who Chooses?” (Matilda Joslyn Gage Center, USA)
With their new and exciting project “Who Chooses?,” the Matilda Joslyn Gage Center is boldly confronting one of the most controversial and divisive issues in the United States today: women’s reproductive rights. Noting the absence of public discussion around this issue, and understanding the need for a space where respectful dialogue can take place, the Gage Center has decided to create a dialogue program that will allow participants to exchange ideas and expand their knowledge of reproductive rights in a safe, non-volatile setting.

The Matilda Joslyn Gage Center, located in Fayetteville, NY, works to uphold the legacy of suffragist and social justice advocate Matilda Joslyn Gage. The Gage Center uses Gage’s former home to relate the history of the numerous social movements in which she was involved, including the women’s rights movement, the abolition of slavery, and freedom of religion. Interested in increasing their dialogue capacity, the Gage Center sought the support of the Coalition’s Project Support Fund in order to help train dialogue facilitators and to create a dialogue model around the reproductive rights issue.

“Who Chooses?” will link Gage’s writings and ideas on women’s rights, as well as on the separation between church and state, with the current controversy over reproductive rights. The Gage Center will approach the issue of reproductive rights from a standpoint calculated to avoid polarized discussion. Instead of asking whether the public is, for example, for or against abortion, they will prompt the public to examine the question of “who chooses,” or who should decide if a woman should or should not have a child. The Gage Center will also attempt to address the widespread misinformation surrounding reproductive rights by creating an informative brochure, which will include the writings of Matilda Joslyn Gage as well as those of other important suffragists.

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Photo: National Stadium of Santiago

In the aftermath of the September 1973 coup d’état that overthrew the Government of Chilean President Salvador Allende, the National Stadium of Santiago (Estadio Nacional) became the largest “concentration camp” in Chile. It is estimated that over 40,000 people spent time in the Estadio Nacional during the junta regime. Today, the Regional Metropolitan Association of Former Political Prisoners works to preserve the site and its historical memory as a concentration camp, a political prison and a torture center. Since 2005 the Association, in collaboration with survivors, organizes guided visits for students and the general public.

The Coalition’s Project Support Fund will strengthen the organization’s educational capacity by supporting formal training on human rights, history and memory to 30 guides. Guides, who are often young people, community members, and survivors’ relatives, will not only learn techniques for teaching history but also how to encourage visitors to reflect on political repression today.

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Alarmed by the rising tide of violence and discrimination towards migrants and minorities in Italy, the Peace School Foundation of Monte Sole is launching M.E.T.A.: Memory, Education, Theatre, Action, a project that aims to use theater to reflect on Fascist Italy during World War II and on the meaning of European citizenship today.

Students aged 18 to 25 will experience this founding Site of Conscience, walking the hills where a massacre of Italian villagers took place in 1944, all while exploring questions about human behavior and the mechanisms of violence. Then, participants will design their own theatrical piece after reading and discussing different texts. With this activity, Monte Sole’s educators aim for the students to critically analyze and understand how violence happens in order to understand why it still threatens us today.

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Memoria Abierta is capitalizing on Argentina’s current judiciary processes – 12 trials related to the country’s dictatorships taking place throughout the country – to increase awareness about the value of justice. In a new, multi-layered project, Memoria Abierta brings personal voices to the judicial process. The organization, which aims to preserve the memory of Argentina’s repressive regimes in order to build democracy, will collect research and oral histories about the process of reparations, exploring the subjective experiences of victims, relatives, and witnesses. Based on this study, Memorial Abierta will create an audiovisual piece, to be on display at Parque de la Memoria in Buenos Aires, featuring different perspectives on war crimes, repression, and justice. This piece will serve as a tool to encourage reflection on these issues and to encourage active involvement in democratic institutions.

Sierra Leone’s Special Court, set up jointly by the Government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations, was tasked with the investigation of war crimes committed during the 1996 civil war. But unresolved questions around justice and impunity, healing and reconciliation still linger.

Amid this transition, Campaign for Good Governance (CGG), one of the oldest non-governmental organizations in Sierra Leone, launched a national public dialogue around these issues on the site of the Special Court, considered an icon of the country’s transition from war.

The first dialogue program will bring together a variety of stakeholders to discuss unresolved aspects of war crimes and justice. In a parallel dialogue forum, community members will address the accomplishments and legacy of the Special Court. Next, students and youth groups will be invited to learn about the Court in the boarder context of justice and human rights.

Each of the public dialogues will also explore what the Special Court means for reconciliation in Sierra Leone. Building from these national dialogues among various groups, CGG aims to draw out a new vision for the Special Court as the country moves forward.

Established in 1996, CGG works towards a more informed civil society and democratic state by encouraging citizen participation in governance through advocacy and capacity building.

To raise awareness and connect the history of Cambodia’s genocide with contemporary questions of re-settlement and deportation, the Cambodian American Heritage Museum (CAHM) is developing a traveling version of the Witnessing the Cambodian Killing Fields exhibit along with an innovative dialogue program and a revamped curriculum.

Opened in 2004, CAHM celebrates Cambodian communities and culture in the United States though exhibits that explore the history of Cambodia, the Killing Fields genocide, and the journeys and stories of Cambodian-Americans. CAHM will expand these efforts by bringing Witnessing the Cambodian Killing Fields to museums, community centers and schools across the U.S.

The exhibit examines the historical and political context that led to the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge and shares the impact of the regime though personal stories, photos and artifacts of survivors. After a tour of the exhibit, visitors engage in dialogue about the challenges of Cambodian resettlement in the U.S. and the threat of deportation many face today. Through these conversations CAHM invites participants to connect the history of the Khmer Rouge to broader contemporary issues like the United States’ deportation policies and refugee rights today.

In addition, CAHM is designing a new curriculum to facilitate genocide education beyond the museum visit. The curriculum will draw from many elements of the exhibition to help school teachers and students discuss the global impact of the genocide, its causes, and legacies.

MUME combines historical research with artistic, educational and cultural initiatives and has developed a groundbreaking new set of workshops designed to engage broad and diverse audiences around personal and collective memory. The program will invite students from all ages and backgrounds to address the questions raised by the museum’s permanent exhibit, which portrays Uruguay’s social and political history from 1960-1985.

Using a variety of media, from clay to stickers, paper to nails, each workshop invites participants to reflect on Uruguay’s history of struggle while making connections to contemporary issues such as torture, imprisonment and poverty. All the workshops use visual art, written text or spoken word to create a space for free expression, collaboration and dialogue.