The VII Foundation: Frontline Report #6
VII Academy alumni from the Balkans in Arles, France for Les Rencontres de la Photographie
The VII Foundation’s mission is to transform visual journalism by empowering new voices and creating stories that advocate change. In a world where beliefs and actions are increasingly out-of-sync with facts and realities, transforming visual journalism is an urgent task.
Dear friends,
Every year in the first week of July, thousands of photographers, curators, and photo editors descend on the Roman city of Arles in the south of France to participate in "Les Rencontres de la Photographie Arles," the world’s pre-eminent photo festival. Exhibitions are curated and installed in churches, old railway sheds, butcher shops, supermarkets, and gardens. Evening events and colloquiums might be held in a Roman amphitheater, or just up the hill in Maja Hoffman’s Luma Foundation Tower, recently designed by Frank Gehry. "Rencontre" in English means "encounter", and the Rencontres is much more than a photo festival; it’s a meeting place. Anywhere there is shade, there are people discussing politics and photography and the politics of photography.
With a generous gift from Jennifer Stengaard Gross and her family, The VII Foundation bought a 200-year-old salt warehouse on a quay overlooking the Rhone river in Arles to house VII Academy. We will formally open our new home in September–and share more about the space with you in a later newsletter –but we opened our doors briefly to friends who visited the Rencontres this year.
Amongst those friends are some of our alumni who joined the legions of young photographers that descend on the town every summer to show their work, seek inspiration from the work of others, and create new networks that will help them further their emerging careers.
It was incredibly moving to be reunited in our new space with three former students of VII Academy in Sarajevo–alumni Petra Slobodnjak from Croatia, Armin Graca from Bosnia, and Vladimir Zivojinovic from Serbia, as well as current student Mitar Simikic–four friends who had shared the long journey to Arles from the Balkans. Through their meeting and engagement at VII Academy and their subsequent friendship and work, they are contributing to building fairer, equitable, and more pluralistic societies in a region still struggling to throw off the shackles of a conflict that ended when they were infants.
They–and our global alumni–embody our conviction that young visual journalists immersed in their communities can advocate change and impact policy. Their work can lead to a better, more inclusive, evidence-based picture of the world. This better picture, in turn, can foster a more democratized global conversation that challenges established gatekeepers and disturbs the daily rhetoric of division and conflict that pours from the hymn sheets of populist politicians.
Wishing you a peaceful summer.
Gary Knight
CEO, The VII Foundation
Arles, France
"Imagine: Reflections on Peace" installed the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo.
"Imagine" in Sarajevo and Washington
The exhibition of "Imagine: Reflections on Peace" is on show at the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo until 31 July, and is now open in Washington DC at the United States Institute of Peace (tickets are free but must be reserved in advance).
In Washington, the "Imagine Reflections on Peace" exhibition will run from June 2nd through August 1st and will be open to the public on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 10:00 am – 4:00 pm. Admission is free, ticket times must be reserved in advance.
Retired landmine-detecting dog Rico visits "Imagine: Reflections on Peace" at the United States Institute for Peace in Washington, DC.
Visitors to "Imagine"
"Imagine: Reflections on Peace" at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington DC has had many visitors already this summer. They include students from across the United States taking part in education trips to their nation's capitol, as well as retired landmine-detecting dog Rico. Rico worked to clear more than 500,000 square meters of land in Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of a team from the Marshall Legacy Institute.
VIIF is hiring
The VII Foundation is searching for a Communications Manager in an active, hands-on role working across the foundation’s international network. Reporting to the CEO, the manager’s primary objective is to develop and focus the foundation’s communications on the key audiences we wish to reach and influence. Applications are now open; check out the details on the position and how to apply. Deadline: 31st August 2022.
VII Academy alumni, staff and friends gather on the top floor of The Alexandra Boulat Campus in Arles, France. July 6, 2022. Photograph by Ziyah Gafic/VII.
VII Academy Alumni in Arles
VII Academy alumni were invited to visit our newly-renovated building, The Alexandra Boulat Campus, during the first week of Les Rencontres de la Photographie Arles. Petra Slobodnjak, Mitar Simikić, Vladimir Zivojinovic, and Armin Graca travelled together from the Balkans, while VII Mentee M'hammed Kilito visited from his residency in Paris. VII Photo Agency photography and VII Academy tutor Stefano de Luigi was on hand to welcome Amine Machitouen, a current participant of our Level 2 Seminar.
Amina Kadous contributed this diptych, including a self-portrait, to our COVID-19 global lockdown project, "Amplifying Student Voices," in 2020. ©Amina Kadous
Amina Kadous wins award at Les Rencontres
Egyptian photographer Amina Kadous has been awarded the Madame Figaro Prize at Les Rencontres for her project, “White Gold.” Exhibited as part of a group show called, “If a Tree Falls in the Forest,” she describes the project as, "an ongoing search for my personal and national identity, [a] cycle of loss and possibilities.” She is now an Artist in Residence at Black Rock Senegal for their 2022-2023 season. Amina is an alumnus of the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop that was held in Kigali, Rwanda in 2019, and also participated in our project, “Amplifying Student Voices,” during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
From the project Land of the Sea, documenting a humanitarian crisis and the effects of flooding along coastal regions in Indonesia. ©Irene Barlian
Leica Oskar Barnack Award spotlights VII Academy participants
Two current VII Academy program participants have been shortlisted for the prestigious Leica Oskar Barnack Award. M'hammed Kilito from Morocco, part of this year's VII Mentor Program, has been shortlisted for his project, "Before it's Gone", which documents oases that provide a buffer to desertification in North Africa. VII Academy Fellow Irene Barlian is also part of the twelve shortlisted candidates for her project, "Land of the Sea," focusing on flooding and rising sea levels in Indonesia and their effects on coastal residents.
Photograph by Joachim Ladefoged/VII.
VII Insider’s online community provides an open platform for public debate and discussion, and we have events coming up in the remainder of July and August.
Joining VII Insider is free thanks to our partnership with PhotoWings. Once registered, members of the VII Insider community get access to weekly live presentations and can view the video collection, which contains more than 100 recordings of educational discussions. We also commission and publish new writing and video presentations on the VII Insider blog that are providing powerful new insights into visual journalism.
VII Insider is a program of The VII Foundation in partnership with PhotoWings and VII Photo Agency.
Combatants for Peace: Summer series
Join us on July 27th as we dive deep into the topic of women's leadership across Palestine and Israel, with speakers Nivine Sandouka and Keren Assaf!
Don't miss your chance to attend an exclusive event with the Combatants for Peace leadership! Sign up to be a monthly donor (at any amount) and you will have access to several exclusive events throughout the year. Our next monthly donor briefing is coming up on August 11th, so don't miss this chance to personally connect with CfP leaders! As a special bonus, we will also send you your very own Combatants for Peace t-shirt or tote bag!
Mosab Abu Toha
Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, scholar, and librarian who was born in Gaza and has spent his life there. A graduate in English language teaching and literature, he taught English at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools in Gaza from 2016 until 2019, and is the founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s first English-language library. Abu Toha is the author of the debut poetry book Things you May Find Hidden in My Ear, published by City Lights in April 2022. The book is shortlisted for the 2022 Palestine Book Awards.
In 2019-2020, Abu Toha was a Visiting Poet in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University; a Visiting Librarian at Harvard’s Houghton Library; and a Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative Fellow in the Harvard Divinity School. In 2020, Abu Toha gave talks and readings at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and the University of Arizona. He also spoke at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting held in Philadelphia in January 2020. In October 2021, University of Notre Dame’s Literatures, Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance lecture series hosted Abu Toha to speak about his poetry and work in Gaza.
Abu Toha is a columnist for Arrowsmith Press, and his writings from Gaza have also appeared in The Nation and Literary Hub. His poems have been published on the Poetry Foundation’s website, in Poetry Magazine, Poetry Daily, Poem-a-Day, Banipal, Solstice, The Markaz Review, The New Arab, Peripheries, Jewish Currents, Democracy in Exile, and other journals.
‘The Journalist in Jenin’, a poem for Shireen Abu Akleh
What a Gazan Should Do During an Israeli Air Strike - a poem by Most
I was introduced to Mosab by Convisero mentor Sara Roy. Together, we created this webinar, From Inside The Wall: Conflict and the Flourishing of Culture In Gaza. We are contributing books to his Edward Said Library in Gaza.
Shorena Shaverdashvili
Shorena Shaverdashvili has 19 years of experience in the field of media, in Georgia.
Over the years, she has been the co-founder and editor-in-chief of popular general-interest magazines, a radio station and the weekly political print and online publication Liberali.
In 2010-2011 Shorena was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Georgian Public Broadcaster, and in 2008-2011 was a co-founder of the media advocacy group Media Club. She also co-founded Media Advocacy Coalition, which became an umbrella for organizations working on media rights. Through these efforts, she actively fought and advocated for media freedoms, freedom of expression and media transparency and accountability.
Between 2013-2019, Shorena held the position of the General Manager of the Publishing and Printing House Cezanne and later became the managing partner at Cezanne Publishing, an independent publishing house specializing in non-fiction titles and translations.Cezanne Publishing also started a paper stationary line which integrates the work of Georgian artists.
In September, 2021 Shorena assumed the position of the Head of the Media Academy, a media institution based on the Georgian National Communications Commission. Media Academy trains journalists through short and long-term training programs, harbours and helps start-ups in digital technologies through the Media Lab and owns a platform called Mediacritic.ge, which provides professional commentary and assessment of media issues and violations of journalistic standards in Georgian media.
Shorena is a graduate of Tufts University, in International Relations and Philosophy.
She is married with three children, Luka (18), Lazare (16) and Cecilia (3).
"Sherman and EPIIC have been the single, most inspiring encounter of my life! I was only a sophomore when I joined EPIIC, and I got very lucky during my "entrance exams". Sherman's "killer questionnaire", which was to test our knowledge of world affairs, and hence help him decide on the EPIIC "dream-team of 1998", was based mostly on the topics I was too familiar with - Russia, post-Soviet countries and good-old Russian Oligarchs. Now we all know about them, but back then, it was a strange word, and concept. Lucky for me, my father had a few Georgian oligarch friends and I knew all too well how they amassed their assets after the break-up of the Soviet union.So, I was in for a year-long adventure, which has been lasting a life-time, thanks to Sherman, who taught us that the world is amazingly and intricately interconnected through serendipitous encounters and our quest for thorough understanding of it's workings, and a deep empathy for human experiences which shape us into super-heroes. Yes, Superheroes! Anyone who has been under Sherman's mentorship knows that anything is possible, through endless curiosity and zeal for life, and learning.I hope for many more encounters with Sherman, where we can drink some Georgian wine and talk about how we tirelessly need to dissect and challenge ideological prisms and mainstream political or cultural narratives of today."
Steven Miller
Steven E. Miller is Director of the International Security Program, Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal, International Security and also co-editor of the International Security Program's book series, Belfer Center Studies in International Security (which is published by the MIT Press). Previously, he was Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and taught Defense and Arms Control Studies in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Miller is editor or co-editor of more than two dozen books, including, most recently, The Next Great War? The Roots of World War I and the Risk of U.S.-China Conflict.
Miller is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where he is a member of their Committee on International Security Studies (CISS). He currently co-directs the Academy's project On the Global Nuclear Future.
Miller is also co-chair of the U.S. Pugwash Committee and a member of the Council of International Pugwash.
Miller was born and raised in North Hollywood, California. He received his undergraduate degree at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He received a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) and a Ph.D. in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He is married to Deborah K. Louis. They have two sons: Jonathan (1989) and Nicholas (1997).
Steve has been a strong supporter and friend. He scripted this letter in support of EPIIC’s and the Institute’s overture to the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Caron Croland Yanis
Caren is principal of Croland Consulting, a private practice that guides athletes, celebrities, high net worth families, and social institutions in building collective purpose and legacy through philanthropy.
As President of Crown Family Philanthropies in Chicago, (2009-2016), she managed organizational redesign and growth, engaged multiple generations, and guided strategy in the U.S., the Middle East, and the developing world.
Caren built Oprah Winfrey’s philanthropies, as Executive Director (2000-2009) at the height of the Oprah Winfrey Show, a period that included Oprah’s Use Your Life Awards, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa and the Oprah Winfrey Boys and Girls Club in Kosciusko Mississippi where Oprah was born. She led disaster recovery and rebuilding in the Mid-South following Hurricane Katrina that put fourteen-hundred families back in homes. Caren was a member of Harpo’s Senior Management Team.
Caren chairs the board of The Poetry Foundation (a well-resourced, private operating foundation) and has guided it through a series of organizational changes with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is a member of the Board of Visitors at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University and at the Women in Philanthropy Institute.
She is a frequent keynote and podcast speaker at wealth management and estate planning conferences with a focus on family offices, governance, and purpose. Recent keynotes and podcasts include: The Heart of Giving (BBB), Dentons, Family Business Magazine’s Family Wealth and Legacy Conference, Family Office World, Yale Philanthropy Conference, and FEW.
Caren is an adjunct professor at Tulane University, the University of Chicago’s Booth School Private Wealth Management program, the Spertus Institute, and the Sports and Entertainment Impact Collective (formerly part of Johns Hopkins).
Caren understands the social change landscape. Her engagement in the sector has spanned media (The Oprah Winfrey Show, Time Inc., WSJ, Country Living) and startups like Leading Edge, formed to build organizational capacity in nonprofits. She has developed economic and education programs in Africa in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela Foundation and through public private partnerships and worked extensively in Israel and the Middle East on cross boundary projects related to coexistence and the environment. She holds a degree in Broadcast Journalism from Emerson College, studied speech and language pathology at Mercy College, and has a certificate in Strategic Leadership for Nonprofit Organizations from Stanford University.
In her spare time Caren hosts salons that bring bold thinkers together for meaningful conversations. She has a passion for listening deeply, navigating challenges, and guiding people who have the potential to make the world a better place.
Sherman had a formative influence on Caren when she was a broadcast journalism major at Emerson College. She helped develop the Freedom of Information Act symposium, that brought journalists and novelists together with politicians to discuss the importance of the Act and the need for transparency. Years later he participated in a conference on ethics and international affairs she chaired in the Isles of Shoals, off the coast of Portsmouth, NH.”
In the early 1980’s, I accepted a very challenging, fun position to enhance the journalism curriculum of the Mass Communications Department at Emerson College, invited by a wonderful lady, Marsha Della-Guistinaand an interesting character, Rod Whitacker aka “Trevanian”. They both gave me full authority to be playful. There, I created some of my first major symposia with the honors undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in my seminars.
I created curriculum on investigative journalism, foreign policy, reporting, and even on sports journalism. In this context, I met Caren, one of the smartest students I had had in decades. She was, and remains, perceptive, innovative, and engaged in remarkable initiatives. I could never have enacted the programming and curricula that stimulated my life without her direct and thorough engagement.
She was an editor of the Emerson newspaper and worked closely with me on several forums, one on the MX missile, and then the forum on Secrecy and Democracy that she mentions above. We convened this symposium in 1982 anticipating Orwell’s 1984. Participants included the former Director of the CIA, the radical lawyer William Kunstler; Mort Halperin of the National Security Council, the author of a book on the Rosenberg’s, novelist Robert Coover; the Official Historian of the US Department of State, William Slany; and the Director of the Ralph Nader Freedom of Information Clearinghouse, Katherine Myer. Here is the cover of the briefing book for that symposium; if one removed the acetone cover, it would reveal the whited-out portions, usually black, in the FOIA docs that inquiring journalists would submit.
World United in Song for Ukraine
WORLD UNITED IN SONG FOR UKRAINE
Just about 2 and one half weeks ago, I arrived in Warsaw, Poland. The motivating vision for this is to unite the world behind Ukrainian youth by creating a virtual marketplace on the new Internet for them to learn, earn and bring trust back to our online world.
Here’s an update on the different aspects of the project beginning with the solar/hand crake instant power. The power is essential but it is needed back in Ukraine as many of the refugees who have arrived are already dispersed into homes and other locations. I’ll be meeting with some Ukrainian activists on Sunday and Monday (World Refugee Day) and Ukrainian teachers and lawyers after that to ascertain where the immediate needs are.
The creation of a legal empowerment network is also moving ahead. The first step was to determine the type of legal needs which Ukrainians are facing in order to make certain that lawyers wanting to offer their services pro bono could meet that need. There are legal needs I’ve identified of individuals in family law and employment matters, real estate matters, business matters and more. The local Polish attorneys in many cases have brought Ukrainian lawyers on board to help. They are overwhelmed with work and the traditional law firm model of face to face meetings can not keep up with the demand. As I was fortunate to have attended a legal hackathon my first week here, I can report that there is an opportunity to set up a virtual lawyer referral and virtual law firm network which will begin to provide the Polish and Ukrainian lawyers with help from lawyers around the world.
As to the virtual marketplace, we have identified a music and documentary project to tell the true story of this war. As the Ukrainian military and people who have remained in Ukraine are telling their stories through pictures which document the atrocities, our approach is to tell the world this story now; eventually, those responsible will be held to account in The Hague for their war crimes. But the world of public opinion can tell that story today. Youth can bring the rule of law to the internet, restart their education and create access to opportunities for themselves and all Ukrainian citizens to tell this story. By exposing the lies of authoritarian leaders who resort to military power and destruction to truth, their lies will be stopped in their tracks.
To get this project off the ground, many people are volunteering their support. Your donations matter even more. The liberal democracy many of have taken for granted is under attack, and, is at great risk. Ukrainian men, women and children are dying and the military fight alone is not the only answer. We need your support in spirit and in financial support. Please support our efforts and we thank you in advance.
Special Report: Ukrainian Refugees and Beit Polska Redevelopment
Special Report: Ukrainian Refugees and Beit Polska Redevelopment, June 26 11:00 AM PST/ 7:00 PM London/ 8 PM Warsaw / 9 PM Israel
UKRAINIAN REFUGEES AND BEIT POLSKA REDEVELOPMENT JUNE 26TH PRESENTERS:
Dominika Zakrzewska, Executive Director Beit Polska
We are Progressive Jews in Poland committed to building up community infrastructure, catering to the needs of the Jewish community on the ground, engaging in social justice and relief work interventions, and creating a safe space for an expression of contemporary Jewish identity, including the unique perspective of 3rd-generation post-Holocaust Jewish Poles and now, many Ukrainian Jews. This year, we are sponsoring the largest class of people studying to join Judaism in our history. Dominika Zakrzewska, our program coordinator will report about the class and the efforts to build our community.
Jonathan Mills, Founder Beit Warszawa re Childcare for Ukrainian Refugees
Beit Polska has been supporting both Jewish and non-Jewish Ukrainian relief efforts. One of our primary focuses has been helping to create childcare for Ukrainian families in Poland. The small stipend that refugees receive from the state is not enough to live on. Ukrainian mothers in many cases need and want to work. They receive a PESEL (think of a cross between a social security number and a green card) that allows them to work legally. There are jobs available. Unfortunately, even before the war childcare was scarce, and there was no childcare prepared to deal with the emotional trauma that the children are going through. Jonathan Mills, one of the co-founders of Beit Warszawa/Beit Polska is working on behalf of Beit Polska’s Janusz Korczak Childcare project with a team from Fundacja Rozwoju Dzieci (Foundation for Child Development) to open 100 child care programs over 100 days. We are supporting this effort financially, through Jonathan’s efforts as well as sponsoring therapists specializing in trauma to Poland to work with the Fundacja Rozwoju Dzieci team.
Ezra Barzilay
Dr. Ezra J. Barzilay hails from Greece and is a pediatrician by training. Currently the Country Director of the CDC office in Kyiv, Ukraine, he is leading the efforts to stem the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and responding to the COVID-19 threat in the country.
Ezra is a commissioned officer of the US Public Health Service, currently in the rank of Captain, he has served in uniform for 16 years, his most recent role at CDC was serving as the technical lead of the National Public Health Institute Program in the Center for Global Health. In this role, he supported several countries in strengthening or establishing their national public health institutes and led the process of strategic planning and coordination of vertical disease programs and other public health functions from a systems perspective.
Ezra began his career at CDC in 2004 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer. He also served as the lead epidemiologist for the Health System Reconstruction Office, and served as the Deputy Incident Manager for the CDC’s 2016-2017 Zika Response, the 2014-2015 Ebola Response and the 2010-2011 Haiti Cholera Response. Prior to that, Ezra led the U.S. National Surveillance Team for Enteric Diseases in the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at CDC.
Ezra received his bachelor’s and medical degrees from Tufts University, in Boston, MA, where he returned in 2012 as an Institutional Scholar and Practitioner in Residence (INSPIRE) Fellow, to advise, mentor, and instruct students of the 2012 Institute for Global Leadership colloquium/symposium efforts on Global Health and Security. He completed a residency in pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine Affiliated Hospitals and then joined the Epidemic Intelligence Service corps at CDC to train in infectious disease epidemiology and is board-certified in pediatrics. Ezra is a Fellow for Life with the Albert Schweitzer Foundation, and holds academic appointments as Adjunct Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences and as Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine.
Fluent in seven languages, Ezra's field experience includes disease surveillance, international public health interventions, disaster response, outbreak investigations, and serving as a trainer and expert consultant for the World Health Organization.
Ezra was a superb INSPIRE Fellow. He was our colloquium Outward Bound quest lecturer and ran the Operation Dark Winter exercise on biological terrorism attacks on the U.S.
Ezra receiving “the Light On the Hill” Award in 2013.
He expertly mentored our students and provided internships at the CDC. I nominated him for the top Tufts University alumni honor, "The Light On the Hill" Award in 2013.
He has remained a close friend and ally. Most recently, he helped convene Trebuchet's webinar event on the human impact of COVID-19.
RWCHR in the News: Coalition of Experts Concludes Russia is in Breach of the Genocide Convention
The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR), chaired by Professor Irwin Cotler, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, along with the New Lines Institute, published the groundbreaking independent expert report, which received widespread international news coverage, including a CNN exclusive and a New York Times front page story.
“We’d like to thank all the contributors who made this report possible. Given the coverage by every major outlet around the world, the international community cannot say they were unaware of the imminent risk of genocide in Ukraine and the corresponding duty to act.”
- Yonah Diamond, RWCHR Legal Counsel and Lead Author of the Report
VII Foundation: Imagine: Reflections on Peace
On June 2, the United States Institute of Peace and our partner, The VII Foundation, will open "Imagine: Reflections on Peace," a multimedia exhibition that explores the themes and challenges of peacebuilding through an immersive look at societies that suffered — and survived — violent conflict. Using historical photos, texts, video profiles, and interactive opportunities, the "Imagine" exhibition brings visitors face-to-face with the realities of violent conflict and asks the question: "Why is it so difficult to make a good peace when it is so easy to imagine?"
Conceived and designed by The VII Foundation, this in-person experience located at the United States Institute of Peace's Washington, D.C. headquarters includes the work of VII Photo Agency photographers: Alexandra Boulat, Eric Bouvet, Ziyah Gafic, Ron Haviv, Gary Knight, Christopher Morris, Seamus Murphy, Maciek Nabrdalik, Franco Pagetti, Espen Rasmussen, Daniel Schwartz, and Nichole Sobecki.
"Imagine: Reflections on Peace" installed at the United States Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C.
This exhibit also gives visitors a chance to engage with the Institute's on-the-ground peacebuilding work — as well as learn about practical actions they themselves can take to make the world more peaceful.
The exhibit will run from June 2 through August 1 and will be open to the public on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 10:00 am – 4:00 pm. Tickets must be reserved in advance here.
Emalee Thitthavong
Emalee has a background in international affairs and economics, and has years of experience as a teacher of communication to a global audience. She has conducted grassroots research in Indonesia, focusing on maternal healthcare to alleviate some of the highest rates of postpartum hemorrhaging in the world. In the Dominican Republic, Emalee tackled workers’ rights issues in the international garment industry and helped launch the first unionized, living-wage garment factory. She used her skills abroad in communication, development and technology to pivot to digital communication for a variety of organizations domestically. Her experiences have included working in healthcare spaces and helping doctors and patients navigate complex medical treatment options, to working with non-profit organizations focusing on refugee resettlement, racial justice, and addressing education inequality.
Currently, Emalee is the Strategic Growth Manager and Communication Coach at Executive Voice, (www.executive-voice.com) coaching international cliente at various career stages. Notably, she’s worked with graduate and PhD level economics departments, world fellows, public health professionals, environmentalists, and architects at top universities around the world. She’s also worked with political candidates and their teams on the municipal and federal level, and executives in the private sector.
Combatants for Peace: Joint Memorial Ceremony Recap
Dear Friends,
Thank you to all of you who joined us last night for the Israeli-Palestinian Joint Memorial Ceremony. We have been overwhelmed by your messages of support for our speakers, and touched by how profoundly the ceremony has moved you. The message was clear;
“Violence creates violence. And the greatest loss is the loss of life,” Nasreen Abu al-Jadian.
Nasreen who lost her son, husband and mother in law to an Israeli strike on their home in Gaza in 2012 was one of our inspirational speakers who all spoke with such immense courage, honesty and strength, we are still in awe.
It isn’t too late to donate to support the ceremony:
For anyone who missed the live broadcast, you can watch the recorded ceremony:
We are now in the final stages of production for our Joint Nakba Remembrance Ceremony which is taking place on May 15th 7pm Jerusalem time.
We hope you will join us once again as we unite to share the pain of history, and look to restore balance to create a peaceful future for all.
In Peace & Solidarity from Israel/Palestine,
Your Memorial Organising Team
The VII Foundation Frontline Report, April 2022
The VII Foundation’s mission is to transform visual journalism by empowering new voices and creating stories that advocate change. In a world where beliefs and actions are increasingly out-of-sync with facts and realities, transforming visual journalism is an urgent task.
Dear friends,
In his beguiling and foreboding memoir A Time of Gifts, recounting his epic journey on foot across Europe in 1933, Patrick Leigh Fermor bore witness to Germany’s fervent embrace of Nazism. That embrace took twelve years, a global war, genocide, and the death of 85 million people to break, and it changed the course of human history. When the war was over, two simple words that newly liberated survivors of Buchenwald wrote on handmade signs entered the universal lexicon: “Never Again.”
And yet, as the terrifying photographs in our latest exhibition, "Imagine: Reflections on Peace," which opens on April 22nd in the National Museum of Bosnia in Sarajevo, reveal, Hitler’s playbook of racism, xenophobia, nationalism, authoritarianism, mechanized warfare deployed against civilians, the destruction of cities, rape, extermination, and the displacement of millions of people are still in use in our time, in Syria and Ukraine.
Imagine retracing Fermor’s journey through Europe’s most populist country today, but in total silence, save for the sound of birds and wind in the trees. Imagine silent playgrounds, empty churches, shuttered hospitals, fallow fields, no cars on the roads, and nobody at home. Imagine Germany vacant, the entire population uprooted. At the end of 2020, 82 million people from across the world - equivalent to today’s population of Germany - have been forcibly displaced because of civil war, invasion, occupation, and autocracy. Imagine that for a moment.
Samantha Power writes in her Afterword to Imagine: Reflections on Peace, “Conflicts produce devastating effects that go beyond the large-scale loss of human life and livelihoods. They often give rise to massive population movements, which are inherently destabilizing and which have incited a rise in xenophobia and nationalism across the globe. The movement of more than one million people, half of them Syrian, across Europe in 2014 and 2015 helped bring about a surge in support for right-wing populism, a repudiation of previous international norms providing for compassionate care and fair processing of those in flight; and a loss of faith in the European Union, which helped fuel support for the narrow Brexit vote in June of 2016.”
Wars in faraway places seem easy to ignore, but they creep up on all of us, wherever we live. In France, Hungary, the United Kingdom, and the USA, we see a rise in populism and nationalism, but none of these countries have wars at home. As the war in Ukraine drags on, migration increases, as does inflation and the price of anything made using petrochemicals - which is almost everything. This faraway war further destabilizes our fragile societies and makes us all vulnerable to populist authoritarianism and a vicious cycle of violence in which we all lose. The imperative for peace has not been greater since Patrick Leigh Fermor walked across Europe, observing Nazism grow in German parlors and beer halls.
Gary Knight
CEO
The VII Foundation
The Israeli-Palestinian Joint Memorial Day Ceremony
MAY 3RD: 1:30 PM EST
These are people who have experienced loss through conflict, who understand grief and anger, and who have chosen another way. Let’s come together and stand with them.
To watch the ceremony go to our:
Facebook page, where we will be Live
or to our YouTube Channel
or visit our website
Because of threats to the security and stability of our live broadcast, we have to keep the direct web links under wraps, and will share them with you a couple of hours before the ceremony begins. Plus, due to the volume of viewers as well as possible cyber attacks, web platforms may struggle. We are well prepared for this, and if your viewing is interrupted for any reason, simply switch to a different streaming channel - Facebook may be the most secure.
Directly following the closing of the ceremony, we have eight Zoom rooms which you are invited to join and hear from a range of speakers. The topics and details are below.
We are once again expecting hundreds of thousands of people from around the world to join us. If this is your first time, expect a profoundly moving experience, and to those of you we see each year, we have missed you!
We hope that you will join us as we explore the notion of ‘Place’ in Israel and Palestine, and how we can truly unite for a more just, hopeful, and tolerant future.
Zoom Rooms following the ceremony
The live links to each of the rooms will be available on our Facebook page and Website during the ceremony
Room 1: The Place of Compassion
Tuli Flint, a social worker who treats PTSD and CFP’s Israeli general coordinator; and Basaam Aramin, co-founder of CFP, will speak on the meaning of compassion in our lives, and in the work of bi-national organizations who take action to bring peace.
Language: Hebrew | Translation: To Arabic and English
Room 2: The Place of Transformation
Tal Sagi, who grew up in a settlement and served in the Israeli military in Hebron, will speak on her journey from there to her role today, coordinating all education activities in Breaking The Silence.
Language: Hebrew | Translation: To English
Room 3: The Safe Space
Bentzi Banderas served as a combatant in the Israeli military in the West Bank and fought in “Protective Edge”, will speak on his journey which led him to his role in Breaking The Silence as the coordinator for Diaspora Jewry.
Language: English | Translation: To Arabic
Room 4: The Brave Place – the place of dialogue
Scott Rasmussen, CEO of “Hands of Peace”, will talk with the organization’s alumni about the courage to talk and listen to the “other” and about the significance – and limitations – of dialogue.
Language: English | Translation: To Hebrew
Room 5: The Place of Youth
Talia Balaban from Tel Aviv and Sima Awad from Beit Omer, both 18 year old, grew up in bereaved families. We’ll hear from them how they got to Parents Circle Family Forum’s summer camp and how it affected them. Teenagers are especially welcome.
Language: Hebrew and Arabic | Translation: To Hebrew and Arabic
Room 6: Dialogue meeting with Parents Circle Family Forum members
Laila Alsheikh, who lost her baby son, and Tal Kfir Schurr, who lost her sister, tell their personal story and talk about their journey to the PCFF.
Language: English | Translation: To Hebrew
Room 7: Dialogue meeting with Parents Circle Family Forum members
Eytan Amir, who lost his brother, and Ashraf Abu Ayash, who lost his father and grandfather, tell their personal stories, and speak about their journeys who led them to PCFF.
Language: Hebrew | Translation: To Arabic
Room 8: Dialogue meeting with Parents Circle Family Forum members
Yakub Rabi, who lost his wife, and Kamaal Zidane, who lost two sons, tell their personal stories and speak about their journeys that led them to PCFF.
Language: Arabic | Translation: To Hebrew
HRF Wins Two Webby Awards
NEW YORK (April 27, 2022)
The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is pleased to announce that the organization’s Uyghur Forced Labor Checker has won The Webby People’s Voice Award in the Public Service & Activism: Advertising, Media & PR category and The Webby Award in the Web Services & Applications: Websites and Mobile Sites category in the 26th annual Webby Awards.
Hailed as the “Internet’s highest honor” by The New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international awards organization honoring excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996, The Webby Awards receives thousands of entries from all 50 states and 70 countries worldwide, and is judged by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a global organization of industry experts and technology innovators.
To date, more than one million Uyghurs and other Turkic and Muslim-majority peoples have been arbitrarily detained and forced to work in labor camps across China — simply due to their ethnicity, culture, and religion. Within these facilities, detainees are under constant surveillance, and are subject to torture, rape, forced sterilizations, political indoctrination, and other grave human rights abuses. According to the Coalition to End Uyghur Forced Labour, “virtually the entire apparel industry is tainted” by such forced labor, and most fashion brands have been found to be profiting from this.
In December 2021, HRF launched the Uyghur Forced Labor Checker, a Google Chrome extension plug-in, to raise awareness about the intertwined relationship between the fashion industry and the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Chinese government. Based on the Coalition’s advocacy and research efforts, the plug-in generates a pop-up that informs consumers when they’re shopping from a brand that has not publicly committed to transparently mapping their entire supply chains and fully disengaging with Uyghur forced labor. With this Google Chrome plug-in, HRF hopes to engage consumers and encourage them to shop ethically, right at the point of purchase.
Mitchell Orenstein
Mitchell A. Orenstein is Professor and Chair of Russian and East European Studies at University of Pennsylvania and Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. His sole-authored and co-authored works on the political economy and international affairs of Central and Eastern Europe have won numerous prizes.
His most recent book, Taking Stock of Shock (Oxford University Press, 2021), co-authored with Prof. Kristen Ghodsee, evaluates the social consequences of the 1989 revolutions that ended communism in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It explores two theories: 1. After a short recession, everyone has done fine and achieved a new level of prosperity, and 2. 1989 unleased an economic catastrophe of enormous proportions that requires a strong hand to put right. Unexpectedly, Taking Stock of Shock finds strong support for both theories. While many people experienced a short dip followed by increased prosperity, a majority suffered an economic decline six times greater on average than the Great Depression. Meanwhile, Western international organizations tried to convince everyone that all was well, creating a bizarre political, economic, and social legacy of transition that remains to be overcome.
Orenstein is also the author of The Lands in Between: Russia vs. The West and the New Politics of Hybrid War (Oxford University Press, 2019), a study of how intensifying geopolitical conflict has shaped politics in the lands in between Russia and the West. It documents the “civilizational choice” faced by these countries, the resulting sharp polarization of politics, and the rise of corrupt power brokers who balance between both sides. While this politics is most evident in the lands in between, it is increasingly prevalent throughout Europe and the West. We are all lands in between.
Prior to this, Orenstein co-authored From Triumph to Crisis: Neoliberal Economic Reform in Postcommunist Countries (Cambridge University Press, 2018) with Prof. Hilary Appel. Based on newly available archives from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, From Triumph to Crisis develops a new theory of the political economy of transition that explains the enduring triumph of neoliberalism in the region from 1989-2008, as capital-starved countries sought to signal their openness to investment with policy reforms. From Triumph to Crisis won the Laura Shannon Prize Silver Medal of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies in 2021.
Mitchell has participated actively in my prior Institute, and particularly inspired my students during my last year at Tufts as my last Outward Bound speaker, where we created the cohesive team necessary to enact a very complicated year. (Here is the program of the 2015-2016 EPIIC Symposium: The Future of Europe. You can find Mitch on page 40.) He has also conducted a recent lecture on Ukraine to my Indian students.
Mitchell is also a wonderful personal friend, and a relative on my wife, Iris’s side.
I will always remember Mitch for his wonderful, direct support of me joyfully retaining nearly ten thousand volumes of my personal library when I retired, which Iris was eager to have me discard. He argued persuasively against that idea, with the wonderful phrase that such a library represented one’s “intellectual autobiography.”
Nuclear Weapons Today: Physics and Politics
Nuclear Weapons Today: Physics and Politics, April 22 10:30 AM Eastern
The panel will feature experts Alexandre Debs (Yale Department of Political Science) and Lisbeth Gronlund (MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy). Attendees will learn about the physics of nuclear weapons and missile defense, key recent innovations, and current political questions—including the challenge of nuclear non-proliferation and dangers posed by the war in Ukraine.
Onsite attendance is limited to members of the Yale community.
After the program, Student Pugwash will host a special viewing of the event video, followed by virtual small group discussions about nuclear weapons policy and risks (date and time TBD). If you are interested in this virtual viewing and discussion, let us know.
Quantum Computing and Global Affairs: A Conversation with IBM’s Mark Ritter
Quantum Computing and Global Affairs: A Conversation with IBM’s Mark Ritter, April 12 4:00 PM Eastern
What are the global implications of recent breakthroughs in both the theory and practice of quantum science? What are the potential roadmaps and notional timelines for the development of these emerging technologies? Will these advances strengthen cooperation or heighten the prospects of competition and conflict among nations?
This special session on “Quantum Computing and Global Affairs” will feature Mark Ritter, chair of the Physical Sciences Council at IBM and a widely recognized national leader and advocate for quantum science. He is a member of the National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee, which provides independent advice to the President and Secretary of Energy on trends and developments quantum information science and technology, and how to maintain American leadership in this critical field.
Onsite attendance is limited to the Yale community, but virtual attendance is open to the public.
Alexander (Sasha) Abashkin
Alexander (Sasha) Abashkin is a Russian educator who for more than 30 years has worked in the interests of developing US-Russia relations.
In 1993 he joined Stanford University and co-founded the Moscow campus of Bing Overseas Studies. He served as the Program's Deputy Director (1993-2004) and then as Program Director (2005-2014). Stanford program in Moscow was one of 11 other programs around the world where Bing Overseas Studies delivers education to Stanford-only students interested in studying abroad.
At some point, Alexander was also invited to head the Center for International Projects of the Russian Academy of National Economy, where his mission was to develop cooperation with foreign universities and organizations. He has formed partnerships with Harvard’s Davis Center, State University of New York, Georgia Tech, University of Southern California, University of Pennsylvania, Brigham Young University, and several other universities. Thanks to his acquaintance with Sherman, Russian students became regular participants in the EPIIC Symposia.
He co-founded and served as Executive Director for the Academy’s “Preparing Global Leaders Summit” (PGLS), a premiere international educational program for best young professionals. The program sought to provide aspiring global scholar-leaders with the tools that are necessary for effective leadership in an increasingly complex world. In the last three years the program of its existence it was attended by young leaders from about 80 countries.
Alexander founded and supervised RANEPA’s English-language Masters’ program, the first Master’s program in Russia for local and international students studying management which is taught fully in English. He promoted the program internationally to help attract students and faculty from more than 20 countries, including US, Canada, France, India, Macedonia, Bulgaria, FSU countries.
Thanks to Alexander's efforts, hundreds of Americans had the opportunity to learn Russian, to get to know Russia, its culture, and people. Many of them have now become respected professionals and work in important positions, including in the US Presidential Administration. In today's Russia, such an achievement became a black mark, which prompted Alexander to leave Russia. Now he hopes to find a position that will allow him to aid scientists from Ukraine, as well as those ones from Russia and Belarus, who oppose the war with Ukraine and are therefore persecuted by the Russian authorities.
In my experience with Sasha, he was a consummate professional, brilliantly alive, and sensitive to cultural and educational nuances, and courageous and ethical in his thinking. I had the pleasure of working with him in my Institute’s TILIP program, when wonderful Russian students attended multiple international programs of the Institute, particularly EPIIC.
I was invited and hosted by Sasha to give graduate-level lectures at RANEPA on global challenges. I particularly remember one lecture when, based on Steven Coll’s book on global energy, Private Empire: Exxon Mobil and American Power, I challenged Russian students to think about the implications of their energy policies in Europe and particularly in the Arctic, both sadly now contested areas of hot and potential conflict.
In what might have been one of the most embarrassing moments of my tenure as the Director of the Institute, where for years I was preparing and advising students on their international, immersive educational experiences, occurred when I and my wife traveled to Moscow on what we thought were valid visas. One day, I had received an incredibly formal-looking, embossed document by certified mail from the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) including a wax chop seal securing the envelope. The letter was printed on parchment vellum and entirely in Russian, a language I could not read. It was followed up by an email from the Presidential Academy the very next day, asking whether I had received my visa. Idiotically, given the timing, I believed that what I had indeed received was my visa, expressly delivered. I did not translate the letter, which had both my and Iris’s formal names in elaborate script, and I immediately emailed back to who I thought was my official Russian contact that I had.
It was an all-expense-paid trip, and they sent first-class tickets, but it was not a direct flight, with a required stop-over in Amsterdam. We enjoyed the city, and arrived early at Schiphol Airport, where we were the source of some consternation at the Aeroflot gate when I presented our documents. Officials agitatedly conferred, all in Russian, and after considerable delay, they apologized and ushered us onto the plane.
Upon arriving at approximately two in the morning, we were immediately stopped at customs and ushered into a pale green, windowless room, interrogated separately, and informed that we had entered illegally and that we would be unceremoniously deported back to Europe on the next flight, which was perhaps four hours later. What I had assumed was my visa was simply an invitation to travel to Washington to the Russian Embassy to get the formal visa.
I felt remarkably embarrassed, humiliated, and stupid, and I could only imagine the humiliation of disappointing Sasha, who had made elaborate plans to host us, as well as the humiliation I would face returning to Tufts, where I departed as an official envoy between two universities. Luckily, a Russian employee of KLM took pity on the two of us and got a message out to Sasha in the middle of the night. Sasha worked his magic. He had contacts at the highest levels of the Russian government and after several hours of pure dismay, we were suddenly ushered into Sheremetyevo International Airport, where Edward Snowden would spend a lot of time in limbo. Upon my return to Tufts, I made sure to tell this embarrassing story, which turned out well, to all of my students, who were travelling all over the world. They got a great laugh out of it, but seriously understood the necessity to more rigorously prepare than I had.
My last time at the airport was decades earlier in the 1970s, when I remember bribing Russian custom officials with Penthouse pornographic magazines to not search our luggage, filled with human rights literature and personal letters to Jewish Russian refuseniks seeking to leave Russia for Israel, and Russian democrats seeking a democratic future in Russia. I was a courier for Amnesty International and the Union of International Concerned Jewry. Quite a different experience. I had made several trips, including one with then-not-notorious Alan Dershowitz, when we each had parts of a small camera we assembled to bring documents back from Russian Laureate Andrei Sakharov.
One note here: The graduate student escort that drove Iris and I around Moscow on a sightseeing tour turned out to be remarkably interesting, especially when he insisted that Jews were responsible for the 9/11 bombing of the World Trade Center. His “evidence” was that all Jews were alerted by the Israeli Mossad to evacuate the buildings before the planes struck. As I reflect on this, I think about the persistent anti-Semitism in Russia, the news blackout over the war in Ukraine, and the perverse irony of Putin arguing his “military exercise” was to de-Nazify Ukraine, and how Russian propaganda asserts that Zolensky — a Jew — has a Nazi-like brain.