User:Tomas III/sandbox

The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (ICSC) is a global network of historic sites, museums, and memorials that advocate on contemporary human rights issues in different regions of the world. The Coalition is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit in the United States. The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience is an affiliated organization of the International Council of Museums and maintains consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

History
The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience was founded in 1999 by Ruth Abram, Founder of the Tenement Museum. She organized a week-long conference in Bellagio, at the Rockefeller Foundation’s conference center in Italy where leaders of nine historic sites came together to sign this founding statement:

The Coalition supports its member sites through funding and training pilot programs to address human rights. It also provides consulting services to museums and cultural institutions in the areas of public dialogue programming, strategic planning, interpretative planning, and exhibition design. The Coalition has over 200 member sites. The Coalition won the 2009 ICOM-US International Service Citation. The ICOM-US International Service Citation was introduced in 1999 and is presented when a person, museum, or other organization is nominated whose work has promoted international relations and has had a significant impact within the museum field.

Programs
The 9 founding members are The Tenement Museum (USA), The Gulag Museum at Perm-36(Russia), House of Slaves known as Maison des Esclaves (Senegal), The Workhouse (England), Memoria Abierta (Argentina), District Six Museum (South Africa), National Park Service (USA), Terezin Memorial (Czech Republic), and the Liberation War Museum (Bangladesh)

This initial group of nine members spanned eight countries. Currently, the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience says it has over 250 members. All members are listed on the organization’s website. The Coalition organizes its members into seven regions: Africa; Asia; Europe; Latin America & the Caribbean; Middle East and North Africa; North America; and Russia. Members conduct joint projects and create exhibits. The North American region has collaborated on projects that focus on immigration and the school to prison pipeline. Recently, they hosted Brown to Board v. Ferguson which coordinated with 11 cultural centers in the United States to host intergenerational dialogue events from 2015-2018. This program was funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services as was the National Dialogues on Immigration program which launched in January 2014. The National Dialogues on Immigration was a coordinated initiative by The Coalition working with twenty museums and historic sites to host programming about historical and present-day immigration.

In 2016, The Coalition began working with Maison Des Esclaves to renovate the historic slave house, update the exhibits and improve the educational center with a Ford Foundation grant. The renovation is a three-year project with estimated completion in 2019. The new exhibit will share the wider story of the transatlantic slave trade.

The Coalition was hired by the City of Fredericksburg, VA in 2018 to audit and analyze the display and interpretation of the slave auction block in the town. The Coalition hosted a number of public dialogues where the Fredericksburg community talked about the auction block and the history of slavery to determine whether the auction block should be moved to a location where the history of slavery can be more fully told or if it should stay at its location.

Transitional Justice
The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience also leads the Global Initiative for Justice, Truth, and Reconciliation (GIJTR), a consortium of nine international organizations that respond in multi-disciplinary ways to the transitional justice needs of societies emerging from conflict or periods of authoritarian rule. GIJTR helps facilitate community-based programs such as violence prevention workshops, art therapy, psychosocial support, community-based memorialization initiatives, and dialogue facilitation for local civil society organizations that seek to help communities heal from recent or ongoing conflict. Memorialization and memory are essential to healing from conflict and constructing peaceful futures. The GIJTR initiative developed from studies that analyzed connections between memorials, civic engagement, and transitional justice mechanisms through youth engagement programs hosted by Sites of Conscience members. Through all of its programs, including GIJTR, the Coalition aims to use collective memory, place, and local history.