Human Rights and Creative Communications is a project aimed at strengthening mutual learning and collaborative production between civil society organizations working in the fields of human rights and memory, and professionals from creative disciplines.

Objective 

The goal of the project is to enhance the capacity of individuals and organizations engaged in the struggle for truth, justice, and memory in using creative communication tools and methods, and to foster relationships and collaboration between these two sectors.

Activities 

Hackathon

On February 2–3, 2019, we organized a hackathon that brought together representatives from human rights NGOs and professionals from creative disciplines. The aim of the hackathon was to develop creative ideas for effectively communicating specific sets of information, research, or data that each organization was working on. Participants included representatives from eight NGOs—Hrant Dink Foundation, Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, Human Rights Association, Rights Initiative, Migration Monitoring Association, Mor Çatı Women’s Shelter Foundation, Civil Society in the Penal System, and Hafıza Merkezi—as well as 18 creatives from fields including design, film, and creative writing. Over the course of two days, participants collaborated within a design-focused framework to generate innovative communication ideas tailored to each organization’s work.

Implementation

In the months following the hackathon, teams composed of NGO representatives, creative professionals, and project coordinators from Hafıza Merkezi focused on developing and disseminating the prototypes created during the event.

Panels

To foster public dialogue and knowledge exchange at the intersection of human rights and innovative approaches, we organized three panels focusing on virtual reality, game design, and hope-based communication:

• Panel 1: Visuality, New Technologies, and Memory: Virtual Reality
  Speakers: Deniz Tortum (filmmaker, producer), Benedict Moran (journalist, producer)
  October 26, 2018

• Panel 2: Visuality, New Technologies, and Memory: Game Design
  Speakers: Amaya Galili (Zochrot), Wojciech Setlak (This War of Mine)
  November 23, 2018

• Panel 3: The Future of Human Rights Communication
  Speakers: Krizna Gomez, Thomas Coombes
  September 20, 2019

► Access video recordings of all panels from our Youtube playlist.