Equipping Survivors to Dismantle Stigmas and
Today, programming by Memory House includes exhibitions that allow victims to tell their own stories of violations in a visual form; an oral history collection featuring the work of young women who captured images and stories of fellow Gambians; and an exhibition of 27 bodymaps that aims to reveal the fullness of an individual victim’s life stories.
Support Transitional Justice After receiving financial and programmatic support from GIJTR to create a pilot traveling exhibit detailing the experiences of survivors in The Gambia, local partner The African Network Against Extrajudicial Killings and Enforced Disappearances (ANEKED) was able to attract enough new funding to open Memory House, the country’s first permanent victim-led memorialization initiative. Founder Nana-Jo Ndow explains that sharing their experiences through these platforms emboldened survivors to be more active in the country’s transitional justice processes: “Before the exhibit, they would not necessarily have thought they wanted to be ‘out there’ in that way. Many were quite nervous about it, but once it was displayed, a feeling of collective strength took over. They were proud of their resilience and strength. We were all sharing our pain, but in a way that was uniting. And for the community—it really opened their minds. They too wanted to share. Some were upset they hadn’t been included and wanted to tell their story in a similar way, so we would follow up with them. Honestly, the traveling exhibit was IT. It changed everything.”
ANEKED founder Nana-Jo Ndow stands before an image of her missing father at “The Duty to Remember,” a traveling exhibition funded by GIJTR that later inspired Memory House, the first memorial to victims of Jammeh’s regime in The Gambia (which can be seen in the accompanying picture). Photo credit for Nana-Jo Ndow: Jason Florio
27
GIJTR’s Impact In Depth: Victims and Conflict-Affected Communities
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online