EdJAM is delighted to announce 17 new projects exploring creative ways to teach and learn about the violent past!

We received 58 applications from around the world, the quality of which was exceptional. Our budget allowed for the selection of a total of 18 projects and this was done through a review process undertaken by EdJAM investigators and members of the Advisory Board. We are delighted to release this first funding announcement, in which we welcome these projects to the EdJAM network. A further announcement will follow shortly. 

Project title: Memories of Conflict: Healing from Lyari’s Violent Past 
Host organisation: Lahore University of Management Sciences
Country:  Pakistan
Project Summary:  This project will create a film about Lyari (a neighbourhood of Karachi that is one of its oldest, but also one often labelled as a ‘no go’ zone due to perceived levels of political and gang violence). There have been no processes of remembering or healing from the state violence the neighbourhood has faced, so the project seeks to contribute to local memory making by producing a film (using focus groups and interviews) and holding dialogues around it.

Project title: (Des)tejiendo miradas: herramientas para una pedagogía de la paz y el diálogo social en Colombia / (Un)weaving perspectives: tools for a pedagogy of peace and social dialogue in Colombia 
Host organisation: Universidad de Antioquia, Facultad de Enfermería
Country: Colombia
Project Summary:  Working with young people, textile and memory, this project uses a traveling and digital exhibition of embroidery created by young people to enable dialogues between urban and rural young people with different experiences of violent conflict and hopes for Colombia’s peace process.

Project title: U kúuchil kaambal kuxtal: Escuela para la vida / U kúuchil kaambal kuxtal: School for life 
Host organisation: Centro Interdisciplinario de Investigación y Desarrollo Alternativo U Yich Lu’um, Asociación Civil
Country: Mexico
Project Summary:  This project develops a popular education curriculum, working outside of formal schools, for the Indigenous children of a rural Maya community in the Yucatan, Mexico. The curriculum is based in history, heart, hands and minds and Indigenous community knowledge and supports meaningful learning for the children of this community, whose access to education has been severely interrupted by Covid-19.

Project title: Cartografías íntimas en comunidad / Intimate cartographies in community  
Host organisation: Universidad Nacional de San Martín
Country: Argentina
Project Summary:  This project aims to promote experiences of democratic, egalitarian and just use of public spaces in areas affected by violence in Buenos Aires and inspire forms of harmonious and ethical coexistence within the community. The project will create a community-centred, reflective, and creative teaching and learning model about state terrorism at a local level for work with students and educators in secondary schools.

Project title: T’ikary: An educational project for Quechua youth  
Host organisation: Mosqoy
Country: Peru
Project Summary: This project aims to address the tension that Quechua Indigenous students face in Peru between pursuing education and abandoning their culture. The project works with 19 Quechua students at the Mosqoy centre (where they are completing studies focused on indigenous learning and decoloniality) to produce self-portraits and a creative portfolio of work. It also offers an opportunity for the centre to develop and research its curriculum.

Project title: Gráfica para descolonizar la memoria: Pedagogías creativas entre la calle, la vereda y la academia / Graphics to decolonise memory: Creative pedagogies between the neighbourhood, the pavement and the academy.  
Host organisation: Asociación Campaña Colombiana Contra Minas
Country: Colombia
Project Summary:  This project will use a feminist and decolonial methodology around memory to work with conflict-affected and precarious women and youth in 4 regions of Colombia (urban and rural) to create and use posters and graphic art to build collective memory. The artwork will be shared, including via an exhibition at Bogota’s main memory centre.

Project title: Disconcerting past: History Education on Mass Atrocities 
Host organisation: Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts)
Country: Cambodia
Project Summary: The project will give teachers from the provinces the chance to visit Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Pehn with their students, to learn more creative ways of presenting and discussing the history of Cambodia, especially the Khmer Rouge period. The project will also develop a manual to support teaching about the Khmer Rouge period and the museum.

Project title: Samrong Knong Memory Sketch 
Host organisation: Youth For Peace Organization
Country: Cambodia
Project Summary: This project works with the Samrong Kong Memory Centre, which a former Khmer Rouge security centre and prison turned memory centre, to create intergenerational memory work, including a banner and traveling exhibition of art produced during the project.

Project title: Performing pain: Mnemotechnologies of Remembrance in Abia and its Impact on Informal (Music) Education, Memory, Peace and Recovery  
Host organisation: Lira University
Country: Uganda
Project Summary: This project uniquely blends academic research and work with artists and communities to explore the memorialisation of the Abia massacre and the current process of remembering, including via music and dance. It pays attention to the impact of violence on the arts and on artists and seeks to recover dance practices lost due to violence.

Project title: Co-creation of Storytelling and Listening Pedagogies for Peacebuilding in Colombia
Host organisation: Universidad de los Andes
Country: Colombia
Project Summary: This project will produce a series of podcasts based on the life history of an Afro-Colombian woman from Choco. The series is designed to highlight conflict experiences as well as historical causes of conflict and ongoing injustices and includes a focus on environment, spirituality, resistance and Afro-Colombian histories. Pedagogical resources will be developed to accompany the series and workshops with teachers will support them to make use of these materials.

Project title: Strengthening Community Memorialization in Northern Uganda 
Host organisation: Foundation for Justice and Development Initiatives (FJDI)
Country: Uganda
Project Summary: This project will create a web presence for the Lukodi Community Memorial Centre (which commemorates a 2004 Lord’s Resistance Army massacre), including digitized artefacts and testimonies. It will work with the local primary school to incorporate visits to the centre and use the new website.  It is one of only two memory centres in Northern Uganda and having a website will increase its accessibility beyond Lukodi and the region.

Project title: Uprooted: Co-creating an Educational Timeline Addressing the Violent Past
Host organisation: Université Catholique de Bukavu
Country: Democratic Republic of Congo
Project Summary: In the absence of resources and training for teaching about recent conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, this project will produce an online accessible historical timeline (in problem tree format and available as an app) drawing on testimonies and representing multiple perspectives. The project will pilot the timeline with a group of teachers, supporting its use in schools.

Project title: The Accompong Maroon Youth Culture Camp & Memory Bank
Host organisation: Accompong Maroon Youth Culture Group
Country: Jamaica
Project Summary: This project is led by the Accompong Maroon Youth Culture Group in Jamaica and centres intergeneration learning and cultural preservation via an after-school club, a culture camp and a memory bank. It uses a ‘learn from and within community’ methodology to value and elevate the cultural heritage and knowledge of this community.

Project title: Embracing Social Identities
Host organisation: Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)
Country: Pakistan
Project Summary: This project aims to change negative narratives toward nonbinary people and gender identities in Pakistan and to challenge histories of violence against them. It will do so by bringing together nonbinary people to producing materials including videos and case studies.

Project title: Unfinished Business: Memory and Counternarratives to the Rainbow Nation 
Host organisation: University of Cape Town, South Africa
Country: South Africa
Project Summary: This project works with an artist to create dialogue around memory practices at the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town (a colonial building and site of torture during apartheid). It will explore silenced, gendered and indigenous memories at the site in order to integrate South Africa’s ‘stalled’ transition. The project will also produce podcasts to share the dialogues produced more widely, including in schools.

Project title: Knowledge as a Tool for Liberation: Economy and Culture as Violent Colonialist Tools 
Host organisation: Grassroots Jerusalem
Country: West Bank/Gaza Strip
Project Summary: This project works to document the experiences of Palestinians in Jerusalem, the changing city and Palestinian resistance to settler colonialism. The project will produce a book chapter and three articles for the Grassroots Al Quds website as well as produce maps and infographics about the shrinking space for Palestinians in Jerusalem.

Project title: Teaching the Violent Past in the Middle East 
Host organisation: Taghyeer Organization
Country: Jordan
Project Summary: This project develops a curriculum and runs sessions with 23 refugees (from different home countries) in Jordan, exploring regional histories of conflict through art, literature, poetry and theory. It will develop academic and policy publications and will also share the creative writing of participants.

We are honoured to have the opportunity to work and learn with the colleagues leading these inspiring projects, which will run throughout 2022. To find out more about these projects and follow EdJAM’s work, please sign up to our mailing list here  

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EdJAM is funded by United Kingdom Research Institutes (UKRI) Arts and Humanities Research Council’s (AHRC) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF).