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Salzburg Global and Diplomatic Courier Launch Transforming Education Channel
Child running through a field pretending to be a plane as the sun setsPhoto via Adobe Stock
Salzburg Global and Diplomatic Courier Launch Transforming Education Channel
By: Dominic Regester 

Channel will publish articles that advance new ideas and approaches for education transformation

This article was first published on Diplomatic Courier

Salzburg Global Seminar and Diplomatic Courier are pleased to launch this new channel focused on Education Transformation as part of our evolving partnership and to support the Salzburg Global Center for Education Transformation. The channel will publish articles on a regular basis that advance new ideas, advocacy, and approaches for education transformation in line with the mission of the Salzburg Center.

We are choosing to launch the channel now because we want it to support and help develop ideas that come out of the UN’S Transforming Education Summit taking place just before the UN General Assembly later this month. The UN summit is being convened in response to a global crisis in education – one of equity and inclusion, quality, and relevance. This crisis has been become slowly more visible for many years but has really been highlighted by our collective experiences of multiple and convergent societal, climate, and health crises over the past few years.

These crises have also acted as a catalyst for many long overdue conversations about the power, purpose, and practice of education. As the world starts to move beyond these crises and societies start to address their multiple causes it feels as if there is an exciting window of opportunity for education systems around the world to go through processes of profound transformation. This is long overdue. The lives that young people today will lead are fundamentally different from the lives of young people a hundred years ago, yet the majority of education systems around the world have barely changed. Of course, there have been incremental reforms as subjects and technology have been updated but the fundamentals of pedagogical approaches, the structure of the school day, assessment, and where power resides in the system have not changed.  

Many systems are now beginning to grapple with the kind of transformation that they need to initiate in order to provide outcomes that will support all students to thrive in the century ahead. We very much hope that this channel will be a place where new ideas from around the world can be shared and discussed for a global audience.

The channel is a shared project between Diplomatic Courier and Salzburg Global Seminar and is part of the Salzburg Global Center for Education Transformation, which focuses on influencing systems transformation efforts by developing new approaches to critical and emerging issues in education, including social, emotional and creative skills, psycho-social support and wellbeing, ecological education, and education leadership.

Salzburg Global Seminar is an independent non-profit organization founded in 1947 to challenge current and future leaders to shape a better world. Our programs seek transformative impact on education, culture, health, and peace & justice through global exchange and collaborative leadership.

If you are interested in writing for the channel, then please contact Dominic Regester dregester@salzburgglobal.org or Shane Szarkowski shane@diplomaticourier.org.

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Feel the Rhythm
Nikhil Agarwal and Tatsuya HondaNikhil Agarwal and Tatsuya Honda
Feel the Rhythm
By: Tatsuya Honda and Nikhil Agarwal 

Salzburg Global Fellows Tatsuya Honda and Nikhil Agarwal are opening a new dimension for people with hearing disabilities

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Salzburg Global Offers Accommodation to Fellows Fleeing Ukraine
Salzburg Global Offers Accommodation to Fellows Fleeing Ukraine
By: Salzburg Global Seminar 

Schloss Leopoldskron opens its doors to offer refuge

This article was first published on March 1, 2022.

Salzburg Global Seminar was founded in 1947 to help bridge divides and rebuild connections following two devastating World Wars. At that time, our home of Schloss Leopoldskron also provided refuge to displaced students. Today we continue these traditions by offering free accommodation to our Fellows fleeing the war in Ukraine.

A limited number of rooms will be made available for the full month of March to our Fellows in need. Hotel Schloss Leopoldskron is part of the Austrian National Hoteliers Association’s #HotellerieHilft and Salzburg Global Seminar is coordinating with local authorities to provide resources, services, and support to those seeking safe refuge in Salzburg.

We are in the process of reaching out to all our Ukrainian Fellows directly. If you need support, please contact us for more details

Since our earliest days, Salzburg Global Seminar has been a place of refuge and connection. A place where Fellows can shed their national and institutional identities and come together as individuals with a shared mission and purpose. 

Our thoughts today are with all our Fellows in Ukraine, as well as all those across the region who face a volatile and uncertain future. During this tragic and difficult time, we will continue support our Fellows in Ukraine and across the region as we collectively seek to shape a better world.

Update - March 10, 2022

Since offering free accommodation to Salzburg Global Fellows and their families fleeing the war in Ukraine, we have heard from friends and Fellows worldwide with offers of support and solidarity.
 
We have 23 people staying with us, as of today, including parents, children, and grandparents fleeing the war. Many of them have come by car, some by train, traveling for days to reach safety, leaving behind their homes, husbands, fathers, brothers, family members, and friends.
 
At Salzburg Global Seminar and Hotel Schloss Leopoldskron, our priority so far has been to provide a place of refuge and safety and to welcome those seeking refuge into the comfort and peacefulness of Schloss Leopoldskron.
 
Over the course of our 75-year history, Salzburg Global Seminar and Schloss Leopoldskron have been a place of safety and refuge for former enemies, displaced persons, and people from different sides of ideological, political, and religious divides. It has been a place of inspiration and renewal for more than 40,000 Fellows from more than 180 countries.
 
Those finding refuge with us now have full access to our facilities, and we are providing breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as other support. In addition, we have created a lounge area where our guests have 24-hour access with couches, a dining space, a tea station, refrigerators, and other services. We have also set up an office for those who need computers and printers.
 
So many of our Fellows, friends and partners worldwide have reached out asking how they can help, which we greatly appreciate.
 
If you'd like information about how you can help, or if you have questions about what Salzburg Global Seminar and Hotel Schloss Leopoldskron are doing to support our Fellows and others fleeing Ukraine, please email ukraine[at]salzburgglobal.org.

Alternatively, you can also donate via our website and designate it for Ukrainian Support under “Special Instructions.” This will help cover meals, rooms, and other housing costs. Thank you.


 

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Emerging Urban Leaders’ First Cohort Nears Its Conclusion With Inspiring Successes
Illustration of skyscrapers lined with trees The program began after a call was put out for people with ideas to improve the quality of life of people who live in urban environments through nature
Emerging Urban Leaders’ First Cohort Nears Its Conclusion With Inspiring Successes
By: Joseph Caron Dawe 

The program has succeeded in bringing together some of the most talented and passionate young advocates for improving the quality of life of urban citizens

Salzburg Global Seminar and World Urban Parks’ first cohort of its Emerging Urban Leaders is drawing to a conclusion, almost one year after the program was launched, with some exceptionally positive and inspiring outcomes already coming to fruition.

Cohort 1 began the program in March 2021 after a call was put out for applications from “outstanding individuals, who have radical ideas that relate to how parks and nature can improve the quality of life of people who live in urban environments”. 23 Fellows were accepted into the network, and each was assigned a mentor to provide guidance and advice to help them move their ideas closer to reality.

With a diverse, cross-sectoral, and international cohort of talented and passionate practitioners and changemakers selected, the aim of the program was to develop a network that would implement innovative and practical interventions to tackle problems facing urban environments; and to help build quality cities of the future.

Focusing on the benefits of the multi-layered emotional and practical support provided by the network, Fellows have joined monthly meetings with presentations and discussions with influential leaders. These monthly meetings along with the mentorship component have helped the Fellows move their own projects from concept to reality, as topics including funding, strategic thinking, building movements, advocacy, and more, were covered.

Practical examples such as the cultural restoration and legislation of land and open space in Auckland, New Zealand, and the impacts of social inequities in the United States and how parks and recreations spaces can lead on efforts to redress these injustices, were presented to also help Fellows see the kinds of impact that their projects could have.

A third component of the program involved using Salzburg Global Seminar and World Urban Parks’ own convenings and partner events to help raise Fellows’ international profiles. The program has seen numerous successes here already. Fellows Shamsa Birik (Program Officer, Embassy of Norway, Kenya) and Leticia Lozano (Co-Founder & Director, MACIA Estudio, Mexico) both spoke at a session on partnerships managed by Salzburg Global Seminar during National Park City Week, while Elizaveta Fakirova (German Chancellor Fellow 2020/21, Humboldt Foundation, Germany) and Samuel Mayze (Director of Strategic Projects, UAP Company, Australia) have both featured in separate episodes of the Future City podcast.

Anupam Yog (Trainer & Researcher, Light On Life, Singapore) and Irene Gauto (Technical Assistant of "Asuncion Green City", United Nations Development Programme, Paraguay) presented at World Parks Week, and Gauto and her mentor Russell Galt (Head of Urban Alliance, IUCN, UK) spoke at a session on the Emerging Urban Leaders program at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) World Congress in Marseille, France.

Salzburg Global Seminar’s strong relationship with World Urban Parks continued to grow with Fellows from the program speaking at multiple sessions throughout the World Urban Parks Congress, on topics including why cities should tap into the power of play in public spaces, adaptations of public spaces under pressures ranging from climate change to equity, as well as Fellows sharing details of the projects they had undertaken as part of the Emerging Urban Leaders program.

Two members of the program’s organizing team, Jennifer Dunn and Hannah Chapman-Carr, also spoke at the Congress as they made a launch call for applications for the 2022 Emerging Urban Leaders cohort, which are open until March 31, 2022. The 2021 cohort will continue their monthly meetings and mentorship program until February.  Applications for cohort 2, which will begin in September 2022 are currently open. For more information, go to our Emerging Urban Leaders program page

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Salzburg Global Seminar and World Urban Parks’ Continue to Push New Boundaries Together
Salzburg Global Seminar and World Urban Parks logosSalzburg Global Seminar and World Urban Parks' goals have aligned perfectly through a series of collaborative initiatives
Salzburg Global Seminar and World Urban Parks’ Continue to Push New Boundaries Together
By: Joseph Caron Dawe 

Organizations collaborating closely on innovative initiatives, with the aim of helping to improve a range of quality of life indicators in urban cities

With common objectives that include exploring the effects on mental and physical wellbeing of equitable access to open spaces, the benefits to community cohesion derived from a strong sense of belonging, and how a closer unity between human life and its surrounding natural habitat and habitants can positively influence quality of life, World Urban Parks and Salzburg Global Seminar are continuing to develop their highly productive partnership.

Salzburg Global Seminar’s mission to “challenge current and future leaders to shape a better world” and World Urban Parks’ vision for a “world where people value and have easy access to quality urban parks, open space and recreation” have aligned perfectly through a series of collaborative initiatives.

The Emerging Urban Leaders program, launched in 2021, seamlessly bonded those ideals. Nurturing a network of individuals active in the urban and community  planning space, the program set out with the mission to “address the growing demand for access to nature in urban space.” Through the establishment of a mentoring relationship with selected leader in their field, Fellows worked on the development of innovative solutions to the pressing issues and needs around requirements for greener cities.

World Parks Week, a World Urban Parks initiative, is another area in which the organizations combined their expertise. Salzburg Global Seminar facilitated a workshop during the 2021 World Parks Week – Why Parks and Urban Green Spaces are Fundamental to Quality of Life in Cities Around the World – in which expert guest speakers and participants considered a range of evidence-based examples from the latest international research, policy and practice that support the idea that urban parks and green spaces are fundamental to addressing a wide variety of urban quality of life challenges.

World Urban Parks and Salzburg Global Seminar also work closely with the National Park City Foundation, which set out to “make our cities greener, healthier, wilder and fairer places to live.”The three organizations worked together to lead a campaign to develop a charter mapping out the key actions that cities can take to become part of the National Park Cities movement and improve the lives of citizens of urban areas around the world. The organizations co-lead a network of around 40 cities around the world on the journey to become National Park Cities and recently managed the review process that led to Adelaide becoming the world’s second National Park City. As part of this, National Park City Week saw the organizations work together to connect campaigners from across the globe and generate momentum, inspiration and shared knowledge to enable positive change in the quest for greener cities.

Salzburg Global Seminar’s own Parks for the Planet Forum, with a fulsome program schedule across October and November 2021, aimed to create dynamic partnerships between people, cities, and protected area systems, and was a substantial front for the progress of ideas around the joined-up missions of both organizations. World Urban Parks is a program contributor to the Forum, and members of the organization attended various programs which focused on themes of loneliness, community cohesion and belonging, safer cities, climate resilience and the correlational relationships they have with public spaces in urban environments.

Salzburg Global Seminar and World Urban Parks look forward to continuing these initiatives and working closely to make positive change in the world in 2022.

 

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Salzburg Global Seminar Helps Adelaide Become a National Park City
Illustration by Lucinda Penn depicting Adelaide, its green spaces, wildlife, and riverAdelaide is the second city to receive National Park City status (Illustration by Lucinda Penn)
Salzburg Global Seminar Helps Adelaide Become a National Park City
By: Joseph Caron Dawe 

Australian city selected as second National Park City during World Urban Parks Congress

Adelaide’s recent selection as the second-ever National Park City had several rewarding elements for Salzburg Global Seminar, as the initiative from the National Park City Foundation continues to steadily succeed in its mission to “make our cities greener, healthier, wilder and fairer places to live.”

Salzburg Global Seminar has championed the National Park Cities Initiative since 2018. Salzburg Global as also present in 2019 when London was named as the inaugural recipient of the title after Salzburg Global Fellow Daniel Raven-Ellison’s idea for the concept came to realization following years of hard work.

The National Park City Foundation, a charity that was set up to support the effort, has the mission of establishing a family of 25 National Park Cities by 2025. Together with World Urban Parks, Salzburg Global Seminar worked with the Foundation to lead a campaign to create a universal charter for National Park Cities to help achieve this aim.

As part of the review committee for the bids put forward for consideration for the second bestowal of a National Park City title, Salzburg Global Program Director Dominic Regester and Program Development Manager Jennifer Dunn helped to assess Adelaide’s submission, interviewing more than 30 individuals either directly involved in the process or who had been selected for interview by an independent consultant.

Adelaide’s National Park City status was confirmed during the World Urban Parks Congress, where participants of Salzburg Global Seminar’s Parks for the Planet Forum were also in attendance to present outcomes of their contributions to the program.

With 95% of Adelaide residents only needing to travel around 400 meters to connect with an open, green space, the Australian city is an example of how urban environments can provide citizens with all the health and well-being benefits that well planned, green, accessible, and equitable public space can offer.

The city is now set for further investment to bolster its status and reputation as a true National Park City, with $5 million dedicated to greening its Central Business District and making it more climate-resilient and a similar budget dedicated to re-wilding the River Torrens. These were key themes that surfaced as part of Salzburg Global’s Parks for the Planet Forum in the latter half of 2021.

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New Perspectives and Ways of Thinking
As seen from above, Sunbox Ambassadors in South Africa positioned on a field replicating the Sunshine Cinema logoAs seen from above, Sunbox Ambassadors in South Africa positioned on a field replicating the Sunshine Cinema logo
New Perspectives and Ways of Thinking
By: Shiba Melissa Mazaza 

Co-founder of Sunshine Cinema Rowan Pybus discusses how his Salzburg Global experience gave him validation and courage to push further ahead

Before becoming a Salzburg Global Fellow, Cape Town-based filmmaker and art-activist Rowan Pybus believed he was doing exactly what he needed to do within his purpose as a film enthusiast. However, while attending a Cultural Innovators Forum program in 2015, he realized he had many changes to make, both in the outside world and within himself.

After establishing multi-award-winning ethical media production company Makhulu Media in 2005, he spearheaded many groundbreaking projects that helped the world see South Africa in a new light, partnering with Greenpeace, WWF, and Google, to name a few. Years later, he recalls the advice he was given - “Don’t work in your business, work on it”  - and how this one line enabled him to be a better leader.

“I was working too close to each action,” Rowan reflects. “I was trying to do too much within organizations. My role was to build out big ideas with the team and to help those that do work in the business to achieve their goals.”

Shortly after Makhulu was born, this new way of thinking led to the formation of his public good film company, Sunshine Cinema, which he co-founded with his wife and fellow visual artist, Sydelle Willow-Smith, operational in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi.

At Sunshine Cinema, they’ve built a solid team of creative activists who train “Sunbox Ambassadors” working in film, photography, and audience facilitation. The ambassadors host free film screenings and produce current affairs podcasts they share with their WhatsApp community networks. Key themes around gender, land, conservation, economic development, and social cohesion became the focus, and the company began to expand the horizons of everyone they met.

After surviving a horrific car accident, Rowan and Sydelle accelerated their program, infusing a home solar system into an old Land Rover, and set about bringing the best African-made films to rural and urban areas. Out of this came an invention - the Sunbox - which allowed them to hand over the power of a cinema to anyone who felt the urge to wield it. This solar-powered cinema-in-a-box is now in the hands of more than 30 young people all over Southern Africa.

Working “on and not in” the business helped him forge a new path and a solid support system for his teams, which has led to tremendous strides for both Makhulu and Sunshine Cinema despite the pandemic.

While Makhulu laid the foundation for Rowan’s dream, Sunshine Cinema was created to “spark conversation,” particularly because African cinema has grown exponentially across time. However, the upkeep of cinema spaces such as theaters and projection halls has quickly declined. Rowan knew film and storytelling were the perfect media to affect how people behaved for the good of society, but projects such as these with the kind of societal impact he was seeking needed immense injections of funding. Remembering the wise words he was imbued with, he began to work on the company, chasing investment opportunities with new vigor.

“At Sunshine Cinema, we were able to focus on finding investors to help us build out a world first course in partnership with the University of Cape Town. I believe that I would not have had the courage to write messages to powerful people had I not received the validation in my own thinking that I did while attending the Salzburg Global program.

“Today, the course focuses on teaching impact facilitation using African-made films to spark meaningful conversations. We are launching to the public in 2022, and it aims to bring the art of face-to-face conversations across divisions that lead to mutual benefit for all who care to listen, empathize and learn from one another.”

The program is set to feature key filmmakers from across the country in Dylan Valley, Gcina Mhlope, Judy Kibinge, and Anita Khanna in a never-before-attempted impact program that will last six months and be conducted online.

Another takeaway since Rowan attended the program at Salzburg was being exposed to 360-degree video. He took this experience and developed an idea that has come to be known as 360HIV: Choice, the world’s first stigma-free sexual health immersive education experience. He then leveraged his network to get support from Google, UNAIDS, the South African Department of Health, and funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to bring his idea to life.

What is key to note about this experience is the young people in attendance can choose how the story unfolds. Upon studying their approach later, they realized their mode of delivery increased memory retention of the key information by as much as 70 percent, bringing the project to academic review, pending publication.

In harnessing the power of his own light and enabling others to do the same, Rowan has come to understand the true meanings of impact and activism. Instead of focusing on what he could do on his own, he opened himself up to empowering those around him, and the results will be felt for generations to come. Such is the collective power of storytelling.

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Faith, Fun, and The New Victorians
Bettina Muchmore and Philipa Naudi standing in a chapelBettina Muchmore and Philipa Naudi are The New Victorians (TNV), a singing duo based in Malta
Faith, Fun, and The New Victorians
By: Shiba Melissa Mazaza 

Salzburg Global Fellows Bettina Muchmore and Philipa Naudi discuss how their Cultural Innovators Forum experience sent them on a tour of chapels across Malta

Bettina Muchmore and Philipa Naudi are The New Victorians (TNV), a singing duo based in Malta, drawing strength from sisterhood, live sonic manipulation, and theater. With a population of just over 500,000 people tucked between Sicily and North Africa, the island is culturally vivid, with a sense of intimacy amongst its bijou of artists.

The duo found their creativity composing, directing, performing, and sharing their harmony with the world. TNV’s 2015 debut album, Seeker Seeker, set the pace for a gleaming future, propelling them toward numerous live acts and releases. It also led to two commissioned electronic music theater pieces in 2018. The first was Rave & Behave, a children’s show for Ziguzajg International Arts Festival. The second was VII (Sette) for Teatru Malta, which quickly became a soldout show at Fort St. Elmo in June 2019.

After spending painstaking hours lobbying for artists’ recognition and support from the Maltese government, their momentum grew. The following year they joined the 2020 cohort of the Cultural Innovators Forum, organized by Salzburg Global Seminar. But, alas, fate had different ideas for how the next year of their lives would be spent.

“I think Salzburg Global Seminar came at a time when I really needed it…” says Naudi. “We had just come from a long period of isolation, not just physically in terms of friends and family but also in terms of inspiration. Typically, we’d fly overseas to perform in Edinburgh or London... It would always fill up our tanks, remind us of the power of art and connection, and why we got into this field in the first place.”

The pair needed to find a way to keep making music that would energize them and their fans at home. Malta happens to be a difficult place to make a living as an artist in particular because of its small size. However, the two kept their spirits high. While attending the Cultural Innovators Forum, the duo had a lightbulb moment.

“During one afternoon session, we discussed ideas about what we can continue doing to support ourselves,” says Muchmore. “It was a very free brainstorming session that helped us see what was unique to our country, our island, our skillset... We didn’t feel pressured to make it an end product in any way. And I remembered thinking, we have so many chapels in Malta... If we’re only allowed to have audiences of 30 people with lots of distance, how could we have a tour of different chapels in Malta so people could go to different concerts in their own village?

“Tours don’t really happen here because it is so small, and it was interesting to think about bringing a tour to Malta. Church and faith usually bring people together, and it was Christmas time, so I think that it was really beautiful to get to the core of that season.”

With just a month until Christmas to pull it off, the sisters felt like it was too outlandish an idea at first. But faith in their ability to bring families together with music after such a taxing year kept them afloat. On the islands of Malta and Gozo (which are two separate dioceses), there are 359 churches, with 313 in Malta and 46 in Gozo.

In just a few weeks, the two and their team visited each chapel, planned photoshoots, prepared marketing materials, and ensured safety protocols were in place. The end result was nine beautifully lit performances across the island, including Santa Katerina Chapel in Żejtun and Imtaħleb Chapel in Rabat. Shows consisted of reimagined hymns and carols held in collaboration with the Archdiocese of Malta.

The shows sold out within two days of launch. It prompted them to extend the run of performances, making room for two or three concerts per night. It was a powerful statement for the creators that mere months ago had to fight for a place at the front of society’s mind.

“Taking the leap is what we always go for,” Naudi continues. “Doing things ‘afraid’ and having faith in your own ideas while hoping that if I am brave enough to enjoy it, other people will too. It’s clear that we’re all going through similar struggles, whether we’re on a tiny island like Malta in the middle of the Mediterranean or in freezing cold Canada!

“It was reassuring, knowing that whatever you’re feeling, disheartened, inspired… that there are people around the globe now that are a kind of your creative family

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Music, Land, and Language
Separate photos of Lazaros Damanis and Sacramento Knoxx on a gray backgroundLazaros Damanis (left) attended the Cultural Innovators Forum in 2014 and is now collaborating with Sacramento Knoxx (right)
Music, Land, and Language
By: Shiba Melissa Mazaza 

Athens-based Cultural Innovator Lazaros Damanis discusses his cross-hub collaboration with Detroit-based Sacramento Knoxx

Athens is a vivid city and one of the most historically influential Greek city-states. It carries values from the classical age that blend, bend and sometimes break with the modern era of social media, social capital, and social shifts. History speaks of philosophers on hills contemplating the meaning of life, the source of creativity, olive branches exchanged in moments of interrelatedness, and our ability to alter our worldviews once those connections are fully explored. Yet, so often, words like “democracy,” “compassion,” and “philosophy” are bandied about without much substance. Still, today, two Salzburg Global Fellows aim to ensure this trend doesn’t continue.

At the moment, cultural and societal turbulence is at the epicenter of an ongoing transformation in Greece. Musician, artist and activist Lazaros Damanis believes resilience and adaptation lead the way to stay flexible enough to change with the surrounding world. In 2014, he became a Fellow of the Cultural Innovators Forum. His time at Salzburg Global reassured him he needed to further embrace global shifts. This assurance was reaffirmed when he met Sacramento Knoxx, a Detroit-based music archivist participating in the program. Thus, a seed was planted during his time at Schloss Leopoldskron that is still bearing fruit today.

“We met for the first time around noon; this was during a workshop that allowed us to introduce ourselves and share some views, mainly from our musical background. Since Knoxx is a songwriter/musician and I am a sound engineer/festival organizer, the path was already there. Knoxx is like a gentle mountain, calm and decent until he starts playing music. From this point, he transforms into a very vivid persona.

“For me, his character and the way he writes his lyrics... the passion for change with music as a tool made me feel quite close to his mindset. We both speak the universal language of music that feeds the soul and ultimately changes the world.”

In 2020, Knoxx, also known as Christopher Yepez, produced a track called LVNDBVCK during heightened tensions worldwide in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a police officer. The likelihood that two cultures so far removed from one another would be able to see eye to eye appeared to be small, but this was not true for the two creators.

Supported by the Cultural Innovators Forum and the Kresge Foundation, Knoxx and Damanis developed an idea for a joint project that emulated their connection. The project brought forth a combination of reverence for pre-colonial mother earth in the US, and the introspective nature of ancient Greek life, with the two finding common ground among the rubble 2020 had wrought.

The project was initially named “Waawiiyatanong,” a word that means “returning to the ways in which the people flourished here.” It is also the Indigenous name for what we understand today as Detroit. The pair were inspired by the idea of hearkening back to push their hopes for the future forward. Until the 1970s, it was illegal for Indigenous people to have any ceremonies in the US. Now they hope to host events that will break new ground for the people who know the land as it was before and can be going forth.

Athens is still, according to Damanis, “developing its transformational thought-culture.” Meanwhile, Detroit’s rich indigenous history, along with developing protest music in house and hip hop as havens for black and indigenous people, teach us more about cultivating a heritage of acceptance and respect, which can, in turn, translate to opportunities for reparations and growth in today’s cultural arenas.

“It is well known that music as a form of expression and furthermore as a universal language can involve different cultures and create connections amongst people. Our main goal is to preserve the cultural heritage of such a vivid area [in Detroit) using music as the main vehicle of our cultural exchange in order to create a multi-cultural cluster with an open-source philosophy.”

This idea involves three days of hybrid workshops, exhibitions, performances, and participation from both sides. Still, the pandemic has thus far prevented them from seeing the full extent of their dreams:

“Implementing the project as it was conceptualized is a bit difficult because we both believe that nothing can replace human contact,” says Damanis. “Having in mind that in Detroit, everyday living has a lot of unpredictable parameters, a purely online project may not have the same impact as it was planned.

"Living and working in Athens - and in other rural areas of Greece - under the scope of a country that works on resilience during tough socio-economic times, one of key factors that led us to a premature stability was the focus on our behavioral roots, bringing up values such as empathy, acceptance, courage and moreover to re-establish solidarity through participation and active citizenship.

“My aim is to apply in a different context methodologies and ideas that worked in my home, having the belief that it can be fruitful for the native arts and culture in Detroit, and of course for the people who are the real actors, acting as catalysts of change.“

As it stands, their project is still in production, but the two continue to think of ways to carve out a new path together, whether digitally or on the ground. In the meantime, Knoxx has released a new album called ‘Medicine Bag,’ which details his passion for Waawiiyatanong and the balance of mind, body, and spirit. Stream the deluxe version on Bandcamp.

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Climate Change Challenges Offer Creative Solutions for the Arts
Headshot of Ben Twist and group photo featuring Twist taken during his time at Salzburg Global SeminarBen Twist’s favorite part of his job is the people he gets to meet and work with
Climate Change Challenges Offer Creative Solutions for the Arts
By: Aaisha Dadi Patel 

Working in the field of arts and climate consciousness, Ben Twist is living his dream – thanks in part to his time at Salzburg Global Seminar

When Ben Twist received an invitation to take part in the Salzburg Global Seminar program Beyond Green: The Arts as a Catalyst for Sustainability in 2016, he was slightly mystified. “I had not heard of Salzburg Global before, and I have never found out how they heard about me and our work at Creative Carbon Scotland,” he told Salzburg Global Seminar. “But I am very glad they did!”

Creative Carbon Scotland (CCS) is an Edinburgh-based arts and sustainability consultancy, and Twist is the founder and director. Initiated by the Edinburgh Festivals, with the Federation of Scottish Theatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network (SCAN), CCS describes its vision “of a Scotland where the essential role of culture in the transition to a sustainable society is fully understood and harnessed by both the cultural and sustainability worlds.”

Twist has long been involved in the arts and creative economy in Scotland, counting close to 40 years of experience as a director and producer of theater, opera, and musical theater. In 2008, he decided to make a pivot. “All the time, I was perhaps most interested in the work that the arts and culture can do for society,” he said. “I had always been fairly green, and I thought culture and theater needed to do more work and play a larger role.” Passionate about self-development, Twist decided to further his studies at his alma mater, the University of Edinburgh – he already held an M.A. in mental philosophy – and in 2010 graduated with an M.Sc. in carbon management, setting up CCS shortly thereafter. In the years since, the team has grown to 10 people, plus a doctoral researcher, and in 2018 Twist completed a Ph.D. on how to influence complex social systems to bring about more sustainable practices in society – something he has put very much into practice.

When attending the program in Salzburg in February 2016 – part of the Culture, Arts and Society series – Twist had an interaction that flipped a switch in him. Fellow participant Frances Whitehead, civic practice artist, principal at ARTetal Studio, and professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, presented a keynote that strongly resonated with him. “I had often thought that as a theater director, I had a range of skills that were useful in many other areas, but they weren’t really recognized,” he said. “Other people don’t know what theater directors do, and this isn’t really recognized by many people in the arts. So when she spoke and told us about her piece ‘What do artists know?’ it made lots of sense.”

The two got along well during their time in Salzburg and continued conversations after returning home; Twist was able to get Whitehead to present, via video link, to draw interest in the CCS’s Embedded Artist Project. After working on the development of a few small projects together, the partnership has grown even further. “Slowly, these have got larger and larger,” said Twist. “The most substantial so far has been in the Cultural Adaptations Creative Europe project, where there were four embedded artists in four cities in Europe.”

The project, a 30-month, four-city action-research project co-funded by the European Union Creative Europe Program and the Scottish Government, half of which is focused on embedded artist projects within climate change adaptation projects in the four cities, poses the questions: How must our culture adapt to the impacts of climate change? And how can culture and creativity help create a positive future?

Launched within one year after the program, Twist – whose favorite part of his job is the people he gets to meet and work with – said, “This is now a large part of our work and very successful.” And he foresees a wide range of further projects as more organizations discover what rich contributions the embedded artist can make. “We have grown quite a big program of embedded artist projects now,” he said.

Presently, CCS is recruiting an embedded artist to work with them and arts funding body Creative Scotland on a project to develop a Climate Emergency and Sustainability Plan for Creative Scotland to help it and the cultural sector in Scotland reach net zero by 2045 and also adapt to climate change impacts. Another Scotland–specific project of CCS, Seas of the Outer Hebrides, is also looking to obtain an embedded artist who will work with local residents to produce a powerful, community-led vision for marine stewardship in the Outer Hebrides. Twist is excited. Asked about where he sees CCS going with the involvement of Whitehead, he simply poses – “Where to start?!”

Of his Salzburg group, Twist said people “pop up from time to time,” and several attended CCS’s Cultural Adaptations conference. He is most grateful for the invaluable connection with Whitehead. “Salzburg Global helped change the direction of Creative Carbon Scotland,” he said. “The work which grew out of the Beyond Green [program] accounts for nearly half of our income and a large part of our staffing.”

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Building a Better, Equal World Through Education
Group photo of participants at Ethnicity, Cultures and the Making of Nations, including Tony Gallagher (circled) and Tony Gallagher todayGroup photo of participants at Ethnicity, Cultures and the Making of Nations, including Tony Gallagher (circled) and Tony Gallagher today
Building a Better, Equal World Through Education
By: Aaisha Dadi Patel 

Nearly 30 years after his time at Salzburg Global Seminar, Queen’s University Belfast’s Tony Gallagher still carries lessons from the program with him every day

For father of four daughters Tony Gallagher, his mission has always been clear: build a better world. “The animating force for me was to contribute as best I could to making Northern Ireland a more peaceful, just, and equal society,” the education professor at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland told Salzburg Global Seminar. “Mainly so that my children would not have to experience the type of world I experienced during my teenage and early adult years.”

Gallagher moved to Belfast, Northern Ireland, as a young boy in 1970 and grew up in a divided society experiencing political violence, unrest, and conflict. Remaining in Belfast, Gallagher completed his studies, from undergraduate to doctorate, at Queen’s University Belfast. He continued to grow in his career at the institution and while serving as a lecturer in educational research, was invited to Salzburg, Austria.

Introduced to Salzburg Global Seminar by Mari Fitzduff, in 1993 he participated in the program, Ethnicity, Cultures and the Making of Nations. Engaging with peers from all over the world, Gallagher found the experience enchanting. “This was my first opportunity to spend intensive days with extraordinary people from such a wide variety of countries,” said Gallagher.

Upon his return home, Gallagher became encouraged about the idea of collaboration as a way of transforming the ways schools in Northern Ireland worked, how they related to one another in local areas, and the communities they were based in. 

“One of the consequences of attending [the program] was to make me think more expansively about what was happening in Northern Ireland and what possible futures we might have,” he said. “Nothing helps you see your own home differently than to see it from far away.”

Much of Gallagher’s research has centered on education in divided societies, particularly in Northern Ireland. “The key for me was to find ways of creating space for dynamic dialogue, the type of speaking and listening that had had such a powerful impact on me during those days in Salzburg,” he said.

From the early 2000s, Gallagher focussed on the development of collaborative school networks. In 2005, he became the head of Queen’s University Belfast’s School of Education and in 2007, created the Northern Ireland Model of Shared Education. This pilot involved students from local areas taking classes in each other’s schools in mixed groups. The program developed an effective model of collaboration between Protestant, Catholic, and integrated schools, as well as highlighted education’s potential role in underpinning peace. The success of this model attracted attention in other countries, with academics, teachers, and policymakers from Lebanon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Cyprus among the nations who explored ways to adapt the model to work in their settings.

Gallagher continued to adopt new leadership roles along the way; between 2010 and 2015, he served as the university’s pro vice-chancellor and in 2016, he served as the Queen’s University’s School of Social Sciences acting head. In the same year, the Northern Ireland Assembly passed the Shared Education Act, ensuring it became a statutory duty for the education ministry to “encourage, facilitate and support” shared education. Before the COVID-19 lockdown, more than half of the schools in Northern Ireland were in collaborative partnerships. In 2020, Queen’s University Belfast received a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Further and Higher Education from Prince Charles for their work on shared education.

Gallagher’s time in Salzburg left him with rich discussions, friendships, and ideas to take forward his work. Several elements stick out from the summer days he spent in Salzburg, including the walks, the meals, and the hearing Mozart’s works on the piano.

He has maintained regular contact with his fellow participants Attila Ledenyi, from Budapest, and Amiram Goldblum, a professor of chemistry at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, visiting both of them in their home countries.

“I have never been back to Salzburg, but I have kept in touch with some of the other participants, and the experience continues to act as a source of inspiration in my work,” he said. “It was transformative in opening my eyes to the possibilities of transformative change and the need to learn from as many other places as possible to encourage the development of innovative solutions in my own context.”


Are you a Salzburg Global Fellow? We are committed to using our programs and networks to support individuals and help accelerate change. How has Salzburg Global Seminar changed your personal or professional life? Share your story.

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How Language And Warm Weather Keeps Margaret Nankinga Productive
Margaret Nankinga (middle) listening to Cameroon's Prof. Sammy Chumbow, President of ACALAN's Assembly of Academicians at an orthography harmonisation workshop held in Kampala some time back. On the left is ACALAN's  Uganda focal person, Ms. Ruth Muguta from the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social DevelopmentMargaret Nankinga (middle) listening to Cameroon's Prof. Sammy Chumbow, President of ACALAN's Assembly of Academicians at an orthography harmonisation workshop held in Kampala some time back. On the left is ACALAN's Uganda focal person, Ruth Muguta from the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development
How Language And Warm Weather Keeps Margaret Nankinga Productive
By: Aaisha Dadi Patel 

Using multilingual approaches, Salzburg Global Fellow Margaret Nankinga is advancing literacy in East Africa

In December 2017, the snow in Salzburg threw Margaret Nankinga off more than she could have imagined. She was more than 5,000 miles away from the Mukono District – the place in tropical Uganda where she called home – and the etiquette and paraphernalia that snowy winters command made her question what she knew. "How you are supposed to dress, where you leave the coat when you enter a room – that set of things, that is what I call a culture shock," she told Salzburg Global Seminar. "And that is one of the things I still smile about today when I think of Salzburg."

Introduced to Salzburg Global by her friend (and Salzburg alumnus) Mary Goretti Nakabugo, Nankinga participated in Springboard for Talent: Language Learning and Integration in a Globalized World. As part of the Education for Tomorrow's World series, the program engaged key discussions around multilingualism and language learning, feeding into the 'series' broader aim of informing new approaches to learning, skills, and inclusion for different societies.

As an educator and local-language journalist and editor working between Kampala and Mukono in Uganda, Nankinga was perfectly placed to contribute. Passionate about language from the days when her primary school teacher praised the way she read stories aloud, she continued to earn a master's degree in education from Makerere University. Trilingual Nankinga – she speaks English, Kiswahili, and Luganda – is also chairperson of the Luganda Lusoga Lugwere Vehicular Cross-border Language Commission in Uganda, an initiative of the African Academy of Languages (ACALAN), a body of the African Union with a mandate of empowering and promoting African languages.

"Language is the way I live. It is vital; it is crucial," Nankinga told Salzburg Global Seminar. "The daily parts of my life are in my mother tongue, and I think so much can be done with that because when I know my language, I can know the things around me, and then I know how I can put to use the things around me so that we can be of help and of value to life."

Following the interactions she had at Schloss Leopoldskron, Nankinga implemented changes in the Commission's work to make it more accessible. For example, they published an online Luganda/English/Kiswahili lexicon for East Africans – the three languages are key for communication in the region and an online medical terminologies publication in both Luganda and English. "The Salzburg Global experience stressed the importance of mother tongue and multilingualism, and this made us change our approach from writing the above publications in only one language to bilingual and trilingual publications," she said.

And the opportunity to network and take African perspectives to a global stage was refreshing and exciting in many ways. "Salzburg Global is an experience like no other," she said. "Although I had had international experiences mainly around Africa, I think I was not very prepared for the Salzburg experience where geography, intellect, cultures and social diversity meet, clash, harmonize, unlearn and learn from each other, [with] each [person] coming out more experienced and knowledgeable than they were before they met."

The program participants remain in contact with one another, with active group chats running and people sharing their updates and new work. For example, Nankinga recounts an incident where she needed to access a paper online that was restricted until she realized it was written by her fellow program participant Kathleen Heugh. One email later, Heugh - associate professor in applied linguistics at the University of South Australia - sent it through from Adelaide. "I know we have access to each other, and I know if I really needed some help, those people would be there for me."

For Nankinga, understanding the complexities of what language holds drives her passion for working in the field. "Language is storage of what you are and what you have around you," she said. "If you lose that, you lose appreciation of what you are and what you have, and then you keep seeking things which you are not."

And advancing African perspectives remains at the core of her work. "Africa has a lot to contribute to the world," she said, emphasizing that working in different languages improves local access to further knowledge."

Nankinga added, "It's about appreciation and recognizing who we are, how we can learn more about how what is around us can benefit us, and how it can benefit the whole world."

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Innovation, Policy, and Passion: How Aiko Shimizu is Making Moves
Photo of Aiko Shimizu (left) and photo of Daimler truck (right)During her time at Daimler, Aiko Shimizu worked closely on clean transportation
Innovation, Policy, and Passion: How Aiko Shimizu is Making Moves
By: Aaisha Dadi Patel 

Salzburg Global Fellow Aiko Shimizu’s engagements at Salzburg in 2017 motored the way for expansions of world-first sustainable electric trucks

Among the things Aiko Shimizu thanks her sister for, there’s one that ranks high: that she chose to become the 14th Dr. Shimizu in a dynasty of doctors – a tradition that has spanned over 300 years in their family – leaving Aiko, who was passionate about international relations and global policy, to pursue her own dynamic and interdisciplinary work.

With graduate degrees from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, a younger Shimizu saw herself carving out a career at an international organization like the United Nations or researching legal and policy issues at a policy think tank. After stints working at the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in New York and Kobe, Japan, and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany, and fellowships at policy think tanks such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Pacific Forum CSIS, and the East-West Center in Washington, Shimizu realized the value of her expertise.

“It wasn’t until I worked on US-Japan relations in various capacities with these think tanks that I became interested in transferring my skills and experiences in global policy that I had gained in the public sector and academic institutions to the private sector,” Shimizu told Salzburg Global Seminar. “My journey has not been linear, and I would have never thought that I would end up where I am today working at the intersection of innovation and policy.”

Growing up, she lived in cities across the US, Japan, Canada, and Germany, which harnessed a curiosity in her and an approach that transcended cultures. In 2017, she visited Schloss Leopoldskron to pursue engagements on a topic close to her heart: a clean and green Asia. Shimizu attended The Asia We Want: Building Community Through Regional Cooperation - a program that encouraged participants to envision an Asia contributing to planetary health. “I knew about the impact that Salzburg Global had on global policy and international relations and knew that I wanted to get involved and contribute to their work to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges,” said Shimizu, calling the program “a perfect fit.”

“I was really excited because it was in my area of focus, where I could bring both my academic and professional experiences to make a global impact on conversations around clean energy and smart mobility policy,” she said.

Shimizu gleaned key feedback during the program, applying takings around discussions on clean transportation to her work at automobile company Daimler. Her role required an international policy background to focus on international government relations and regulatory strategy for their new all-electric truck.

Also, in 2017, Daimler launched the world’s first electric truck onto the market. Shimizu used the knowledge she gained on urban innovation to build sustainable cities across Asia to expand the company’s opportunities in electric vehicle (EV) trucks in cities across the Asia-Pacific and globally to North America and Europe. “Since electric trucks are part of this solution as a form of clean transportation to build cleaner cities, I was able to apply what I learned at Salzburg Global Seminar,” she said.

The first global launch took place in New York at the end of 2017, and within a year, the company was able to increase EV truck sales by 5,000% through building partnerships with global cities such as Amsterdam, Tokyo, Berlin, and Lisbon.

A true global citizen, the power of international networks and knowledge of different markets has catapulted her to a place in her career where she has never been happier.

“I am who I am today because of my experience of living in so many different places, being surrounded by a diverse group of people, and working in so many different industries,” said Shimizu, who now leads global policy as the Senior Vice President of Global Affairs and Strategic Partnerships at EVA, Inc., a New York-based company that was founded by former Tesla executives that develops sustainable drone charging infrastructure.

She retains contact with her connections from Salzburg, whom she credits for reminding her that there are diverse paths to be taken to create a clean and green Asia. “The experts that were in my program are global leaders that share the same passion for global policy and sustainability,” she said. “They have been very helpful for me in bouncing around ideas as well as in giving me the opportunity to learn about what’s happening in their regions.”

And going with what she loves has always shown her success – a maxim she emphasizes to be the driver behind all she does. “Something that has been consistent, regardless of the role or industry that I’ve worked in, is that I’ve always focused on global policy and international relations,” said Shimizu. “That was where my passion was, and that never wavered regardless of what I did.”

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Conceptualizing Mass Violence: Representations, Recollections, and Reinterpretations
Navras J. Aafreedi (left) and Priya Singh (right) and cover of Conceptualizing Mass Violence: Representations, Recollections, and Reinterpretations (Photo of Aafreedi by Joel Mason-Gaines at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)Navras J. Aafreedi (left) and Priya Singh (right) and cover of Conceptualizing Mass Violence: Representations, Recollections, and Reinterpretations (Photo of Aafreedi by Joel Mason-Gaines at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)
Conceptualizing Mass Violence: Representations, Recollections, and Reinterpretations
By: Salzburg Global Seminar 

Salzburg Global Fellows contribute chapters to a new book exploring the varied memories of mass violence

Several Salzburg Global Fellows have contributed to a new book exploring episodes of mass violence from the twentieth century to the present.

Conceptualizing Mass Violence: Representations, Recollections, and Reinterpretations was published on May 14, 2021, by Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group.

Edited by Salzburg Global Fellow Navras J. Aafreedi and by Priya Singh, the book features essays by Salzburg Global Fellows Yael Siman, Srimanti Sarkar, Tali Nates, Güneş Murat Tezcür, and Stephanie Shosh Rotem. In addition, Charles Ehrlich, a program director at Salzburg Global Seminar, has also authored a chapter.

Aafreedi said, "The volume aims to encourage scholars, academics, and activists to come together to understand mass violence from a fresh perspective.  

"The primary intention is to comprehend how episodes of mass violence through history have been represented, reminisced, and reinterpreted with a view to rationalize the failure in preventing the same and consequently, what remedial measures can be adopted, such as Holocaust [and] genocide awareness and education, to restrict its occurrence in the future."

Conceptualizing Mass Violence: Representations, Recollections, and Reinterpretations is an edited collection including several papers presented at a conference Aafreedi organized in Kolkata in 2017 - Prevention of Mass Violence and Promotion of Tolerance: Lessons from History. Salzburg Global representation at that event included Ehrlich, Rotem, and Sarkar, as well as the late Edward Mortimer, then a senior advisor for Salzburg Global.

While Aafreedi has never directly experienced mass violence, an incident he had aged 13 left an impression on him. He said, "[I experienced] a curfew imposed in my hometown, Lucknow, in Uttar Pradesh, India, during the several months of Hindu-Muslim clashes in the aftermath of the demolition of the 16th-century Babri mosque in Ayodhya in 1992, which gave me a sense of threat to my life just because of what my communal affiliation was perceived to be.

"The fact that low-scale mob violence is cyclic in nature and intertwined with India's electoral politics triggered my interest in the subject of mass violence. I also noticed that in spite of the frequent occurrence of mob violence in India, there was no formal education about it at any level in Indian academia with the aim and objective of preventing it."  

Aafreedi said the absence of a memorial to lives lost during the partition of India in 1947 also caught his attention. He added, "The more I read about mob and mass violence, the more I realized how people in India could indulge in mob violence with a certain degree of impunity given the extremely low rate of conviction.  

"My desire to understand the causes of mass violence and what could be done for its prevention stimulated my interest in Holocaust studies. It, in turn, led to a desire to raise awareness of the Holocaust as I encountered a tendency to deny the historicity of the Holocaust or minimize its scale in certain sections of society."   

In 2009, Aafreedi organized a Holocaust film retrospective, the first-ever in South Asia. In 2012, he convened a workshop at Yad Vashem on how to educate Indians about the Holocaust. He has also attended events at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, including the Conference for International Holocaust Education in 2015. The graduate course on Holocaust and genocide studies that he started at Presidency University in Kolkata is the first of its kind in South Asia.

Within Salzburg Global Seminar’s Holocaust Education and Genocide Prevention (HEGP) series, Aafreedi has participated in the 2014 program, "Holocaust and Genocide Education: Sharing Experience Across Borders." In 2017, as part of the HEGP initiative “Combating Extremism and Promoting Pluralism,” he worked with other Salzburg Global Fellows to help advise on the establishment of a graduate degree program in "Conflict Resolution and Peace Governance" including a component on Holocaust education, in Morocco.

Essays in Aafreedi's new book "explore and deliberate upon the varied aspects of mass violence, namely revisionism, reconstruction, atrocities, trauma, memorialization and literature, the need for Holocaust education, and the criticality of dialogue and reconciliation."

The book, available as a hardback or eBook, would interest postgraduate students and scholars from the interdisciplinary fields of Holocaust and genocide studies, history, political science, sociology, world history, human rights, and global studies.  

Ehrlich said, "This book makes an exciting addition to the literature because it covers such a wide range of angles, geographically (across six continents) and thematically.  It examines not the mass violence itself but rather the memory of mass violence and how it is used for different purposes.  If we are to learn the lessons from mass atrocities, we need to remember them properly, and also learn the lessons from how they are remembered – this book illustrates these aspects across multiple contexts and disciplines."

Reflecting on his essay, "Holocaust, Propaganda, and the Distortion of History in the Former Soviet Space," Ehrlich said, "During my time working in the former Soviet Union and other post-communist countries, I witnessed the misuse of the Holocaust within current state (primarily Russian) propaganda and in false popular narratives in countries where the Holocaust took place.   

"Not only was a Jewish presence in Eastern Europe erased by the Nazis, but also the memory of that presence has been erased twice more: first by communists (later morphing into the current Russian narrative) and subsequently by countries regaining their independence from Russian occupation. My chapter thus addresses the distortion and misuse of history."

Tali Nates, founder and director of the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre, said she was delighted to contribute an essay titled "New Developments in Holocaust and Genocide Education in South Africa."  

Nates said, "The essay looks at critical questions such as 'How do you teach about the Holocaust and genocide and use these histories as tools to understand human rights and democracy?' This is a key question in South Africa, a country still recovering from the devastating legacy of Apartheid. The essay looks at the opportunities and challenges that Holocaust and genocide education offers in South Africa, looking at the case study of the work of the... Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre."

Güneş Murat Tezcür, Kurdish Political Studies program director at the University of Central Florida, has co-written an essay with Tutku Ayhan titled, "Overcoming' Intimate Hatreds:' Reflections on Violence against Yazidis."  

Tezcür said, "The self-styled Islamic State (IS)'s violent campaign against the Yezidis, a historically marginalized community, in northern Iraq in August 2014 was an unmitigated disaster for the community. In our contribution… Tutku Ayhan and I demonstrate that the relationships between Yezidis and their neighbors, mostly Sunni Muslims, exhibited complexity and countervailing tendencies that could not be accurately captured by a prism of minority victimhood.  

"At the same time, religious stigmatization transmitted across generations fomented anti-Yezidi violence and provided justifications for extreme practices. We reached a paradoxical conclusion: what is most unprecedented about the IS attacks is the growing international awareness of Yezidis and acceptance of them as a faith group entitled to rights, recognition, and dignity."

Srimanti Sarkar, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at West Bengal State University, has written an essay titled, "The Genocide of 1971 in Bangladesh: Lessons from History."

Sarkar said, "History is constructed. The history of genocide in Bangladesh, too, is constructed. For drawing a reasonable lesson out of such a 'constructed' history of genocide, one must cautiously de-construct and subsequently reconstruct the widely professed historiography.  

"The chapter [I have written] highlights some of the immanent challenges within the Bangladeshi polity that prevent one from drawing an encompassing lesson from a history of genocide."

Yael Siman, associate professor of social and political sciences at Iberoamericana University, co-wrote a chapter with Daniela Gleizer, a researcher at the Institute of Historical Research, National Autonomous University. Their chapter is titled, "Holocaust survivors in Mexico: intersecting and conflicting narratives of open doors, welcoming society and personal hardships."

Siman said, "We have been working on the experiences and the narratives of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Mexico since a few years ago. Our research has been largely based on oral history, although we have also analyzed historical documents from the National Institute of Immigration and family archives of Holocaust survivors.

"As we listened to the survivors' testimonies, we were puzzled by their stories, especially because they contrasted with the narrative of gratitude… still widely shared in Mexico. This narrative has been officially promoted by the government (through different administrations), museums, and the local Jewish community. But the testimonies of survivors tell a very different story: Holocaust survivors came to Mexico mainly because they had family in this country.  

"Even if their first encounters were warm, they faced various hardships that included difficulties to learn the language, find a job or pay for their education, obtaining a work permit, facing a numb community that did not want to listen to their trauma, and not being able to become citizens. Readers of this chapter will learn about the transnational histories of the Holocaust in Latin America while becoming aware of the hardships experienced by many survivors who, like other victims of mass violence, have been forced to leave their countries of origin and face structural obstacles, stigma and uneasy relationships in the new places of destination."

For more information on the book and to buy a copy, please visit Routledge.com

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Diversity and Digital Health Care: The Shuri Network
Shera Chok (second from right) with members of the Shuri Network at the launch in 2019Shera Chok (second from right) with members of the Shuri Network at the launch in 2019
Diversity and Digital Health Care: The Shuri Network
By: Aaisha Dadi Patel 

Sciana Network member Shera Chok is carving out a platform for women from minority backgrounds in the UK’s National Health Service

Shera Chok was on a bus in the east of London one morning in 2015 when a Somali woman seated opposite her leaned across, gestured to the teenage girl beside her, and said “Dr Chok, the last time you saw my daughter, she was in my tummy.”

Chok is a busy woman. Besides her role as a general practitioner (GP) in Tower Hamlets, London, she is also the deputy chief medical officer at NHS Digital, and national clinical advisor, system transformation at NHS England and NHS Improvement, and most recently, co-founder and chair of the Shuri Network. For Chok, the bus interaction highlighted how brief interactions with patients leave lasting impressions.

“The fact that she remembered the impact I had on her 15 years prior really got to my heart because that’s the impact we can have as health professionals on patients we might only see 2-3 times for ten minutes,” she told Salzburg Global Seminar. “The impact we can have on our communities is huge, but we need to support our staff to do that well.” 

Born in Leeds and growing up between Malaysia and the UK, Chok has been in practice as a medical doctor since 1993. She also holds an MBA, and an MSc in interprofessional education. Her days are filled with work that she is passionate about, and she has worked hard to upskill herself to ensure she builds and sustains equitable systems in health care in the UK. “I am driven to solving problems and trying to help NHS staff do our jobs,” she says. “How do we get pathways more seamless for patients and staff?”

And supporting and upskilling NHS staff – in particular, women of BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) backgrounds – is the main aim of the recently launched Shuri Network.

Piloted in 2019 after Chok’s participation in Sciana: The Health Leaders Network at Salzburg Global Seminar, the Shuri Network has grown to 1000 members in 2021, offered bursaries to 25 women to further their careers, launched the first digital shadowing program in the NHS, and provided them with a national platform to share their contribution to digital transformation, particularly during the COVID-19 crisis. Through showcasing the potential, skills and efforts of women of color in health care and championing them and their efforts and actively putting conversations around diversity on the table, the Shuri Network is changing the perception of what a digital health leader looks and sounds like. 

Chok credits Sciana with helping to launch the initiative: “Discussions with [Sciana Chair] Ilona Kickbusch, [chief executive of the Health Foundation (a Sciana funder)] Jennifer Dixon, [Salzburg Global program consultant] John Lotherington and Sciana participants helped to distil the aims and objectives of the Network,” she explains.

Troubleshooting, addressing inequalities, and “seeing for herself what was happening rather than reading about it in the press” are the top three reasons Chok cites for why she chooses to engage in such diverse areas of work. While most of her work has been in London – particularly around the Tower Hamlets area, a diverse part of the city which features a high number of people from all over the world – she has also taken time out at points in her career to assist NGOs in disaster areas across the world. Chok has worked in Darfur, Sudan with patients displaced by fighting in the region, taught medicine at a paediatric department in the Southeast Asian country of Laos, and assisted with relief efforts in Indonesia following the 2004 tsunami. Most recently, she worked at refugee camps on the Greek island of Lesbos. She recounts each experience as “life-changing.”

“Medicine lets you do that, if you want to. Working in disaster areas gives you an appreciation of what we have in our lives, and how quickly that can be stripped away,” she said. Passionate about building sustainable systems, Chok advises that women of color need to “build your own personal board of directors.” As her own example demonstrates, she is a strong advocate of the ideal that as women ascend in their careers, they should remember to uplift others like them. 

And with conversations centered on race currently so topical, initiatives such as the Shuri Network hope to sustain them. Improving patient safety and experience, digital transformation and innovation, and diversity and inclusion are the three key things at the heart of network. And Chok believes the time has come for moves to be made beyond talking about them. “There has been a lot of data collected, so we know there is inequality, we know that there is a lot of discrimination (in the UK)”, she says. 

“Now is the time to take action. We have got enough data.”

To find out more about the Shuri Network, please visit: www.shurinetwork.com  


Established in April 2017, Sciana: The Health Leaders Network is supported by an international partnership between the Health Foundation (UK), Careum Stiftung (Switzerland) and the Robert Bosch Stiftung (Germany) in collaboration with Salzburg Global Seminar.

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Salzburg Global and Global Alliance Share Reflections and Learning Pathway from Salzburg Process
Banner advertising the Salzburg Process on the Climate Emergency and the Future of Food
Salzburg Global and Global Alliance Share Reflections and Learning Pathway from Salzburg Process
By: Salzburg Global Seminar 

Post-event report published one year after virtual convening bringing together more than 300 change-makers

Salzburg Global Seminar and the Global Alliance for the Future of Food have launched a new report on the cross-cutting imperatives for food systems transformation.

The report stems from a series of online events held by both organizations in 2020 that made up the Salzburg Process on the Climate Emergency and the Future of Food.

The Salzburg Process’s overarching objective was to connect communities at the nexus of food systems and climate change.

More than 300 change-makers took part in curated conversations and engaged with thought-provoking presentations. The Salzburg Process also created opportunities for knowledge exchange and informal interactions.

The report includes a joint letter from Ruth Richardson, executive director of the Global Alliance, and Clare Shine, former vice president and chief program officer of Salzburg.

In this letter, both say, “The Salzburg Process aimed to co-create a safe space for openness. A space where ideas, issues, tensions, convergences, and divergences related to food systems and climate change could be explored and discussed on equal terms. We recognized this was an ambitious task but hoped the process and confluence of diverse perspectives would help surface potential opportunities for collective action.

“Transformational change challenges the status quo and deep-rooted behaviors, practices, and societal norms. It is dynamic, it takes time, and it takes trust. It is neither straightforward nor linear, and so neither can be our plans and processes. As you will read in the following pages, we listened intently and humbly during and after the Salzburg Process, shifting our final objectives to better reflect the realities of bridging divides online during a pandemic.

“This Reflection and Learning Pathway is a synthesis of the Process, the discussions, the feedback, and our takeaways as the convenors. It shines a light on stones unturned, and we hope, in doing so, creates opportunities for further exploration and dialogue. We invite readers to use and amplify the content in line with their own missions, resources, and capacity.

“While the Salzburg Process and the Future of Food did not result in the Shared Action Framework we intended, it generated real benefits: deep conversations, the Global Alliance’s Seven Calls to Action, and an expanded community of individuals and organizations committed to the intersectional climate and food agendas. Speaking personally, the Salzburg Process has deeply informed the way our respective organizations approach these issues. We are deeply appreciative to everyone who took part and created these opportunities for growth and learning.”

To support the Salzburg Process, the Global Alliance and Salzburg Global commissioned five discussion papers on these “hot topics” central to the food-climate nexus: nature-based solutions, livestock production, sustainable and healthy diets, food loss and waste, and just transitions.

Read the Reflections and Learning Pathway

Read the Five Hot Topics

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Salzburg Global Fellows Receive Intercultural Achievement Award
A mural designed by Ralph Eya and Katharina Kapsamer"Smile at a Common," A New Genre Public Art Project from the People and for the People, has resulted in the creation of murals in different parts of the Philippines, Manila, and Vienna.
Salzburg Global Fellows Receive Intercultural Achievement Award
By: Salzburg Global Seminar 

Ralph Eya and Katharina Kapsamer receive praise for their project, "Smile at a Common," A New Genre Public Art Project from the People and for the People

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Contested Histories in Public Spaces: Principles, Processes, Best Practices
Contested Histories in Public Spaces: Principles, Processes, Best Practices
By: IHJR, IBA and Salzburg Global Seminar 

Join the virtual launch of landmark publication, produced in cooperation between Salzburg Global Seminar, the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation and the International Bar Association

The virtual launch of the eBook Contested Histories in Public Spaces: Principles, Processes, Best Practices will be held on Thursday, February 11 (18:00 – 19:00 CET).

The publication is the first volume of case studies to be produced through Contested Histories in Public Spaces, a multi-year initiative intended to address controversies over statues, memorials, street names and other representations of disputed historical legacies in public spaces. It is a joint project between the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation (IHJR), the International Bar Association and Salzburg Global Seminar. The IHJR was founded at Salzburg Global Seminar and is now a research center at EuroClio.

The initiative seeks to provide decision-makers, policy planners, educators, and other stakeholders with a set of case studies, best practices and guidelines for addressing historical contestations in an effective and responsible manner. As of February 2021, the initiative has identified more than 230 cases of contested histories in public spaces.

The landmark publication is intended for policymakers confronting controversies over historical legacies in public spaces like statues, memorials and street names. It presents ten case studies and discusses their significance, interpretations and possible remedies – placarding, resignification and repurposing, to relocation, removal, or destruction. Iconic examples are disputes over Christopher Columbus, Edward Colston, Robert E Lee, and Cecil Rhodes, among others.

The webinar will be chaired by Timothy W Ryback, Director and Co-founder, Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation. Opening and introductory remarks will be provided by Mark Ellis, Executive Director of the International Bar Association, and Baroness Usha Prashar, CBE, PC, a crossbench member of the House of Lords, and chair of the Contested Histories Task Force, with closing remarks by Benjamin Glahn, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Salzburg Global Seminar.

Participants will hear from the volumes’ co-editors, along with practitioners and scholars. Speakers will include His Excellency Lamberto Zannier, former OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities; Harriet Senie, member of the New York City Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments and Markers; Shahid Vawda, Professor of African and Gender Studies, University of Cape Town; Lecia Brooks, Chief of Staff, Southern Poverty Law Center; Joanna Burch-Brown, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at University of Bristol, and commissioner for the "We Are Bristol" History Commission (Bristol), Marti Burgess, lawyer and Chair of Black South West Networkl and Klaus Kraatz, Vice-Chair of the IBA's Art, Cultural Institutions and Heritage Law Committee.

Register for the book launch webinar here: www.ibanet.org/contested-histories-book-launch

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What Future for Festivals?
What Future for Festivals?
By: Susanna Seidl-Fox 

“We need festivals – now more than ever!” declares Salzburg Global report on the current state and what comes next for the beleaguered sector, post-pandemic 

One hundred years ago at Schloss Leopoldskron, Max Reinhardt, Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal founded the world-renowned Salzburg Festival as a “Festival of Peace” to transform “the whole town into one stage.” To celebrate this centenary so inextricably linked with our home – Schloss Leopoldskron – Salzburg Global Seminar originally scheduled the program What Future for Festivals? for March 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the program was postponed to October and subsequently moved online due to continuing travel restrictions and health regulations.

Little did we know while developing the session in 2019, just how compelling and urgent the question at the center of our program – what future for festivals? – would be. Few sectors have been hit as hard by the pandemic as the cultural sector, with festivals being particularly vulnerable to the fallout from the compounded global crises – not just COVID-19, but also the climate crisis, and worldwide social and economic upheaval.

We know that festivals of all types and sizes have energized communities since time immemorial. Rooted in rituals, stories and faiths, they have embodied local and indigenous cultures and celebrated deep bonds to nature, land and the seasons. Modern festivals range from intimate experiments to gigantic mega-events, showcasing ever more diverse creative practices, from the performing, visual, and traditional arts to photography, film, literature, street arts, food, light, design and ideas-based, future-focused, eco-inspired events. Whatever their intended focus – creative innovation, activism, city branding, wellbeing, community building, pure entertainment – festivals have always spoken to fundamental human needs. They have allowed us to share in a density and intensity experience, revel in specialness beyond day-to-day routines, and join – as the German word “Festspiele” infers – in “celebration and play.”

But what is the future of festivals as we look ahead to continuing travel constraints, unpredictable limitations on public events, and looming economic crises? And, even with COVID-19 vaccines now forthcoming in some parts of the world, how will both the festival landscape and festival goers themselves have changed in the interim? How will festivals adapt and cope with these altered circumstances? These and many other questions were at the center of our online discussions in October and November 2020.

This report and the accompanying series of thought-pieces authored by several program participants (to be published weekly from February to April 2021) share reflections on the past year and insights on the challenging path ahead for festivals. While we identified even more questions than answers during our conversations, one thing is certain: we need festivals now more than ever. The coronavirus pandemic has brought into sharp relief that festivals are not just “nice to have” – we must have them to thrive and not just survive.

Human beings need to gather, to celebrate, they need their spirits to soar, to witness artistic genius, to feel chills and goosebumps run down their spines, to revel in the thrill of live performance and shared experience, to clap and be applauded, to amaze and be amazed, to laugh, shout, and be joyful together.

Without such experiences we may function, but we will not be truly alive.

Download the report as a PDF

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Happiness and Harmonization as Bhutan Decriminalizes Homosexuality
Salzburg Global LGBT* Forum Fellows from Bhutan (clockwise from top left): Pema Dorji, Ugyen Tshering, Passang Dorji, Namgay Zam, Madan Kumar Chhetri and Ugyen Wangdi
Happiness and Harmonization as Bhutan Decriminalizes Homosexuality
By: Salzburg Global Seminar 

Salzburg Global LGBT* Forum Fellows help end colonial-era laws against “unnatural sex” in Bhutan

The Himalayan nation of Bhutan has become the latest country in the world to finally decriminalize homosexuality – a move met with much joy by the LGBT community in a country renowned for its “Gross National Happiness” index.

Bhutanese Salzburg Global Fellows had been prominently active in the decriminalization efforts in their country.

In recent years, while advances in trans rights had been made – trans men and women are able to obtain official identification aligned with their gender identity, as one LGBT Forum Fellow from Bhutan was able to gain in 2017 – Bhutan, like much of the region, had previously maintained colonial-era anti-sodomy laws, effectively criminalizing homosexuality and marginalizing the LGBT community in the country.

The move on December 10, 2020 to finally decriminalize homosexuality comes following a long period of legal “harmonization” launched in 2008 to align all of Bhutan’s existing laws with the new constitution (the country’s first written constitution), which guaranteed many fundamental human rights.

“The Salzburg Global LGBT* Forum is thrilled about the decision of the Bhutan parliament to decriminalize homosexuality with an absolute majority and warmly congratulates our six Bhutan Forum Fellows who worked so hard to make this happen: activists Pema DorjiPassang DorjiNamgay Zam and Ugyen Tshering, and Bhutan Parliamentarians Ugyen Wangdi and Madan Chhetri,” says Klaus Mueller, founder and chair of the Salzburg Global LGBT* Forum.

In 2016, Wangdi and Chhetri requested to join the program The Many Faces of LGBT Inclusion in Thailand as part of the harmonization process, specifically looking at Sections 213 and 214 of the Bhutanese penal code which criminalized “unnatural sex”, widely interpreted as homosexuality. 

The two parliamentarians were accompanied by Bhutanese LGBT activists Pema Dorji and Passang Dorji (no relation) who shared with great honesty the repercussions legal, cultural and family exclusions had on their lives. 

When asked in 2016, immediately following their participation in the Salzburg Global LGBT* Forum program, what were the most important insights they had gained through their participation in the Forum, Wangdi noted three things: the importance of terminology, the challenges faced by LGBT people with regards to families and marriage and state-sponsored LGBT extremism.

“That struck me most because anything can happen if law is not correct and right and it can affect the community, society and country as a whole,” he reflected.

Passang Dorji was also positive about the chance to forge connections with the parliamentarians, remarking in 2016: “I felt the highest level of happiness in talking face-to-face, and discussing one-on-one about our issues, policies and laws that our country is reviewing.”

These new relations meant that upon returning to Bhutan, Wangdi and Chhetri worked not only with their colleagues in parliament but also with their newfound colleagues from the Forum. 

Speaking to Reuters news agency after the passage of the new legislation, Wangdi said that the bill had passed unopposed with 63 of the total 69 members of both houses of parliament voting in favor; six members were absent. “Homosexuality will not be considered as unnatural sex now,” he added.

“It is wonderful to see that parliamentarian Ugyen Wangdi then became the vice chairperson of the parliamentary joint panel leading the process to explicitly exclude homosexuality from the definition of ‘unnatural sex’ through an exception clause,” said Mueller.

Bhutan activists found allies outside of parliament also, in particular Namgay Zam, executive director of the Journalists; Association of Bhutan, who joined the LGBT* Forum in 2019 at the program Advancing Legal and Social Equality in South Asia held in Nepal. Zam worked closely with Pema Dorji and other LGBT activists to keep decriminalization at the forefront of the harmonization agenda, supported by other activists within the LGBT* Forum network with experience of overturning such legislation in their own countries.

Reflecting on the historic ruling in December, Mueller said: “Salzburg Global LGBT* Forum is excited to have being part of this transformation process that accelerates recent legal changes in South Asia that advance LGBT equality.” 

* LGBT: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. We are using this term as it is currently widely used in human rights conversations on sexual orientation and gender identity in many parts of the world, and we would wish it to be read as inclusive of other cultural concepts, contemporary or historical, to express sexuality and gender, intersex and gender non-conforming identities.

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Moving from Me to We Online in Times of COVID-19
Moving from Me to We Online in Times of COVID-19
By: Faye Hobson & Louise Hallman 

The Salzburg Global Forum for Young Cultural Innovators moves fully online for 2020 - embracing both the challenges and opportunities of online convening

Communities around the world are facing radical social, environmental, political, and economic disruption, while confronting complex challenges that range from the COVID-19 pandemic to structural inequity and racism, outdated systems of education and work, and climate change.

Shaping a creative, just and sustainable world calls for action at all levels and collaboration across many sectors. We need bold ideas and innovation to build a more vibrant and resilient arts sector that can advance inclusive economic development, positive social change, and urban transformation for livable cities. The cultural sector is essential to regenerate and energize societies, but artists and creative innovators have never been in a more precarious situation. This is especially true of members of the Salzburg Global Forum for Young Cultural Innovators (YCI Forum), many of whom have been severely impacted by lost income as a result of venue closures and cancelled work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Against this stark background, the 2020 programs and activities of the Salzburg Global Forum for Young Cultural Innovators – from the emergency grants and half-day regional programs in the spring through to the ambitious 10-day program and the follow-on Workshop Week and Hub Huddles in the fall – have all sought to connect, support, empower and inspire this growing global network of emerging creative leaders.

Moving from in-person to online convening presented challenges but in responding to those challenges creatively and innovatively, a great many opportunities were harnessed and successes achieved.

Read all about the YCI Forum in this year's report A Global Platform for Creative, Just and Sustainable Futures:

 

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Young Cultural Innovators Join Forces in Magazine Global Fundraiser
This is a photo collage of Usanii Magazine. It shows the Issue One front cover and two magazine features. These are bright and colorful features. The top right image shows performer Nviiri wearing sunglasses on a blue background. The bottom right image shows an interview with Maria Goretti, yellow and black text on a green background. The left image shows the magazine's front cover, featuring a large profile photo of Chemutai Sage.Image: Usanii Magazine
Young Cultural Innovators Join Forces in Magazine Global Fundraiser
By: Josh Wilde 

Salzburg Global Seminar Fellows Lai, Xochitl Calix, and Moira Villiard come together to crowdfund emerging artists’ magazine

Launched in April 2020, Usanii, the Swahili word for artistry, is a free magazine that features developing musicians, photographers, poets and more to raise awareness of their work and enable collaboration with established artists.

The magazine founder, Lai from the Nairobi Hub, participated in October's Young Cultural Innovators Forum (YCI) and wasted no time in joining forces with fellow YCI members Xochitl Calix and Moira Villiard, from the Detroit and Upper Midwest USA Hubs respectively. Their initial crowdfunding target is $10,000 to support his publication that showcases emerging artists from underprivileged backgrounds.

Embodying Salzburg Global Seminar’s mission to bridge divides, expand collaboration, and transform systems, Lai is now calling on more YCI Fellows to join his campaign.

“The whole idea of fundraising was really pushed by two YCI members, Xochitl and Moira,” he says. “They have been very instrumental in helping initiate what to look at and how to package the magazine. I have been reaching out to different YCIs from Europe, Australia, the US, Asia, and telling them about the magazine.”

Lai’s own story is inspirational. Growing up in the Kawangware slums of Nairobi, Kenya, his idea for the magazine started two years ago with just a pen and paper.

Saving up money to cover the cost of accessing a computer at an internet café, Lai produces the Usanii magazine and accompanying Conversations YouTube series, from interviews and design to editing and running the social media accounts.

“I cannot overstate how crucial [the crowdfunding] would be,” he explains. “I work as a music teacher. I earn around $6 per lesson. Out of that $6, I’ll probably use $5 at the Internet café. 60%-70% of my monthly income goes to the magazine.

“The fundraiser would allow me to buy a laptop most importantly, and a printer so I’m able to print the magazine myself at a lower cost.”

Still operating during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lai does not charge for the magazine, hoping its free accessibility will help the artists’ stories reach more people. Lai’s vision is to support global artists’ voices and provide opportunity for anyone who needs it.

Money raised will be used to buy essential equipment, hire staff and grow the publication. A percentage of funds will be donated to selected organizations that promote this fundraiser.

Villiard is working with Ugandan artist Steve Boyyyi to create paintings of African life which will be sent to those who give $150 or more. Lai says these donations will be split between Usanii magazine and Boyyyi, whose foundation supports Ugandan street children.

A painting of three zebras, in front of green foliage and a blue sky background      A painting of a person in blue and white clothing, walking with a dog by their side. They are holding some wood in one hand and carrying bananas on their head. The background is yellow and orange      A painting of two giraffes and two elephants by some water. One of the giraffes is having a drink. They are in front of a yellow, orange and red background

Images: Paintings of African life / Usanii Magazine

Should the crowdfunder reach Lai's ultimate target of $25,000, he hopes to utilize connections made through the YCI Forum to start monthly training and seminars from February 2021, where artists in Kenya will get a chance to interact and learn from YCI Fellows.

“We already have Fellows who have expressed interest in offering training in different fields throughout 2021,” he beams.

You can find out more information and donate to Usanii magazine through their GoFundMe page: https://gf.me/u/y8icmi 
 

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“Media Literacy is the Front Line of the New Cold War” in Misinformation
This is a US protest image. A man holds up a large handpainted sign which reads, I wish this were fake news. There are other protesters holding signs behind him.Image: Kayla Velasquez/Unsplash
“Media Literacy is the Front Line of the New Cold War” in Misinformation
By: Josh Wilde 

Latest Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change workshop considers the value of truth, transparency, and media literacy in combatting misinformation and declining public trust

Misinformation has created and accentuated divides between communities. Global protests in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are indicative of wider social unrest and declining public trust, fueled by a dangerous misrepresentation of facts and fiction that threatens the future of truth itself.

The last workshop in an online series designed to investigate the impact of protest and pandemic, entitled, Has Misinformation Undermined Public Trust and Democracy?, considered citizens and institutions’ roles in safeguarding democracy.

Roman Gerodimos, associate professor of global current affairs, Bournemouth University, UK, explained how information had been strategically weaponized by governments, intelligence services, and rogue actors to exploit fault lines between communities. 

He referenced the coordinated digital misinformation campaign after the 2018 Salisbury poisoning of former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. Gerodimos termed this hybrid threat “the New Cold War.”

He said, “Now we know it was three high-ranking officers of the Russian military intelligence service, but at the time RT, Sputnik, and other Russian media produced 46 different theories. Some of them were quite absurd. 

“What it teaches us is the point of misinformation. It’s not to promote one version of the truth. The point is to be so confused about what is truthful that you ultimately abandon the idea that truth is attainable and important.

“We need dissent and dialogue, which is about the pursuit of truth and the role of citizens as stakeholders. What we’re seeing through misinformation is the exact opposite. It’s called power politics, and it is disempowering citizens from being critical thinkers. The fastest way to shut down a democracy is to shut down dissent”.

Gerodimos also introduced his new Deterrence documentary series that explores these issues and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) role in European security. The project was co-created by staff and students from Bournemouth University and can be viewed for free here: https://www.deterrencethemovie.com/  

Pablo Martinez Zarate, professor of documentary film and digital narrative, Iberoamericana University, Mexico, highlighted the difficulty of responding to misinformation in a partisan environment, where traditional narrative strategies are blocked by the opposition and media organizations may be viewed cynically.

He proposed the need for counterstrategies to reach across fragmented communities, particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic has widened these divisions. Zarate also discussed political polarization, characterized by US President Donald Trump.

Zarate said, “We have to stare at the face of difference. Sometimes it’s really hard to share political views that under our perspective are the right views when there is political discourse or legitimization of this cynical, alternative view.

“In other words, how can we build narratives that convince people who do not agree with the narratives we are sharing, and not only [reach] people that already agree with our world views?

“We have enormous challenges today after the pandemic that can push us to alternative solutions that we didn’t necessarily anticipate before.

“In order to escape this huge vortex, we need to question centers of power and meaning. We need to recognize that it takes sacrifice, a way of sacrificing our own view in order to recognize alternative and difference.”

Zarate shared the interactive documentary Forensic Landscapes, which explores the complex issue of forced disappearances in Latin America through innovative virtual storytelling. Zarate and Anne Huffschmid directed the project. It can be viewed for free here: https://forensiclandscapes.com/ 

Paul Mihailidis, the program director of the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change, then encouraged open dialogue in a half-hour discussion between speakers and participants.

Gerodimos explained the need for a pluralism of news sources and some method of regulation to preserve freedom. Zarate described the importance of shared experience as a source of truth. Both speakers agreed that critical thinking, fostered by media literacy, is crucial in combatting misinformation and rebuilding public trust.

Gerodimos said: “If we agree that we want ‘these’ consequences over ‘those’ ones, and we also agree that we want people to be participants in that process, essentially you’re talking about the construction of democracy, more or less, then I think media literacy or that type of engagement is indispensable.”

Zarate added: “Media literacy, I totally agree, has to go beyond a set of skills … the skills will change in 10 years, they might change in 20, so if we focus more on ideas like self-realization, I think that could boost media literacy further.” 

Mihailidis ended the session by thanking everyone who attended this workshop series.

He concluded, “We’re all really excited by the level of engagement that went beyond our expectations. That’s the power of our community and what we can do, even in this time of protest and pandemic.”
 

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Protest and Pandemic: Researchers Leading the Way
Work from home image. There is a laptop on a wooden table next to a blue mug. The laptop screen shows a group Zoom video call with the participants faces slightly blurred.Image: Chris Montgomery/Unsplash
Protest and Pandemic: Researchers Leading the Way
By: Josh Wilde 

Researchers present pioneering projects in second Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change online workshop 

COVID-19 and global protests continue to affect our media and civic systems. As more people spend longer periods working and learning in an online environment, Salzburg Global Seminar recently explored if this pandemic is changing the way people interact with each other and the media.

The second of three Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change workshops created to examine the dual impact of protest and pandemic considered, How can Researchers Document Unrest on the Front Line? Three distinguished researchers presented innovative projects to 75 participants in the online public session before dividing into groups for open discussion.

Program Director Paul Mihailidis began by dedicating the event to Academy faculty member and friend Moses Shumow on the first anniversary of his death.

Stephen Reese, Jesse H. Jones professor of journalism, Moody College of Communication, The University of Texas at Austin, USA, introduced the three panelists and described how the pandemic had shone a light on existing practices.

He said, "COVID has not so much caused but revealed some of these structural issues in the global community: adequacy of health care, the social safety net, political institutions, press performance, and networks of information. All the things which are so close to our subject matter with the Academy. The question then is how can we conduct research that takes into account these global connections which have been highlighted by the pandemic".

Sangita Shresthova, director of research, @CivicPaths, University of Southern California, USA, explained the importance of protecting researchers who themselves are experiencing the pandemic they wish to study. The Civic Imagination Project analyzes 'people's vision for a better world tomorrow. Forced to move workshops online due to COVID-19, Shresthova described the adaption process.

She said, “We were confronted with a situation that filled us with fear, the opposite of imagination. We wanted to do something that would inspire the imagination … we made a very strong conceptual and theoretical commitment to thinking of ourselves as participants. Our research really needed to contribute somehow to the participants' lives”.

Participants in this workshop shared their thoughts through virtual word clouds on what values should shape the world of 2060 and the stories that inspire them when they imagine this future. Shresthova noted the difference between answers after conducting the same exercise at Salzburg Global Seminar in 2019, highlighting how today's world may not be adequately described by past stories and people are instead reaching for new ways to explain the current situation.

Claudia Kozman, assistant professor of multimedia journalism, Lebanese American University, Lebanon, conducted research with fellow Academy faculty Jad Melki into selection bias and political participation around the October 2019 Lebanese protests. She described how a tax-rise for online messaging service WhatsApp sparked widespread demonstrations, nicknamed 'The WhatsApp 'Revolution', and illustrated growing resentment against the government.

A representative survey of 1,000 people in Lebanon found respondents who felt strongly either for or against the protests chose media that aligned with their views and demonstrated selective avoidance. Protest supporters dominated selective sharing on social media while those opposing the demonstrations were not as active in promoting anti-protest news. Kozman asked the workshop’s participants to think about why selection bias matters.

She said, "If we live in a place where we feel strongly about something that we believe is our own right as citizens, does it mean we have no room for the opposite view? 'Isn't it important for us to be part of political deliberation because that is basically the backdrop of democracy, or do we want to close off everything and just listen to what we want to?"

Susan Moeller, director of the international center for media and the public agenda and professor, College of Journalism and the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, USA, gave special insight into a survey of 'students' media consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data from this research project is currently being analyzed. The results will be available once the study is complete.

Participants were then allowed to share their own experiences and ask questions during smaller breakout sessions before Mihailidis closed the event, thanking everyone for their contribution.

He said, "We are once again super humbled that this community can come together in the numbers that it does. I encourage you to reach out to Sangita, Claudia and Susan to ask more about their research and follow-up questions The goal here is to spark community and invite everyone to continue the discussions”.

Registration for the third workshop on Thursday, November 19, 2020, entitled, Protest and Pandemic: Has Misinformation Undermined Public Trust and Democracy?, is free and open to the public, sign up here.

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First Book from New Series Explores Social and Emotional Learning in the Mediterranean
A red apple is balanced on top of some school books. Next to it on the right are some coloring pencils and A B C building blocks.Image: Element5 Digital/Unsplash
First Book from New Series Explores Social and Emotional Learning in the Mediterranean
By: Josh Wilde 

Publication explores how countries in the Mediterranean basin are stimulating SEL and what can be learned

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is crucial in teaching skills such as self-awareness, problem-solving, and empathy, prerequisite traits for positive development in an era of substantial social, economic, and technological change.

SEL has become a valuable tool in tackling challenges faced by countries in the Mediterranean basin, including violence and forced displacement, which can hinder quality education delivery.

The first volume in the Brill | Sense series on Comparative Education in the Mediterranean, Social and Emotional Learning in the Mediterranean: Cross Cultural Perspectives and Approaches, is a pioneering publication that explores how this region is stimulating SEL, the barriers to its implementation, and what can be learned. It aims to raise awareness of effective practices and critically reflect on challenges with recommendations for policy-makers, intervention, and future research.

The book features a diverse range of contributors from both within the Mediterranean region and further afield. They include series editor Ronald Sultana and volume editors Carmel Cefai, Salzburg Global Seminar Program Director Dominic Regester, and Leyla Akoury Dirani. 

Salzburg Global is proud to have facilitated an SEL session with many authors that fostered this volume idea.

Speaking on Monday at the latest program, Social and Emotional Learning in the Mediterranean Region, part of Salzburg Global’s Education for Tomorrow’s World series, Cefai explained there is now a consensus on how SEL varies across different contexts.

“Research evidence shows high-quality programs which have been very effective in one context did not travel: when they were implemented in other contexts they were not effective at all,” Cefai said.

“Rather than trying to carve out a new niche for SEL in a curriculum which is already overloaded, it might be more feasible, practical, and culturally sensitive to make use of existing overlapping structures and try to introduce SEL on the back of that existing framework.

“One issue which I think SEL can be helpful with is to promote and advance children’s rights and children’s voice. Children themselves will have the opportunity through SEL to talk about what they would like to see in their education.”

This volume is dedicated to Samar El Ahmadieh from Lebanon, one of the authors who sadly passed away during the publication process.

Other contributors include: Claudine Aziz, Özden Bademci, Marc Brackett, Roxane Caires, Valeria Cavioni, Yvonne El Feghaly, Nahla Harb, Maria Kalli, Wael Kazan, Amina Kleit, Nagwa Megahed, Gihan Osman, Amor Ouelbani, Maria Poulou, Anwar Hussein-Abdel Razeq, Rémie Rhayem, Katia Terriot, Carly Tubbs Dolan, and Emmanuelle Vignoli.

The book is available to purchase here from the Brill Publishers website.

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Young Cultural Innovators Win Major International Award
Robert Praxmarer and Thomas Layer-Wagner smiling in an action pose with some game controllers.Photo courtesy of Polycular.
Young Cultural Innovators Win Major International Award
By: Josh Wilde 

Salzburg Global Fellows Robert Praxmarer and Thomas Layer-Wagner recognized with inaugural Olympics of Innovation Challenge Award

Robert Praxmarer and Thomas Layer-Wagner met while working at university where they turned dream into reality, co-founding the interactive design and technology studio Polycular.

They are now in dreamland once again after their company won an international Olympics of Innovation Challenge Award for Artistic Vision at the inaugural World in 2050 Awards.

Described as “a forum for our future,” Diplomatic Courier’s World in 2050 think tank recognizes outstanding organizations tackling significant challenges across seven classifications: Society, Humanity, Energy, Health, Travel, Off-World, and Artistic Visions.

Solutions from each category will be championed at major global forums including the Innovation Olympics Festival, the United Nations General Assembly and the G20 Summit.

“I couldn’t actually believe it,” Praxmarer told Salzburg Global. “If you read through the other winners – SpaceX by Elon Musk, Johns Hopkins University, Bird – the names couldn’t be any bigger. They are the world leaders in their field. Then it says Polycular which really feels uncanny. A small Austrian company with 12 people being given this prestigious award. It’s more than a surprise.”

The judges praised Polycular’s variety and quality of work. From sustainable, environmentally-focused projects such as EgoGotchi where they reinvented the popular 1990s’ Tamagotchi toy craze to encourage greener lifestyle choices, to visionary ventures such as Morbus Genesis which uses computer algorithms to show everyday inanimate objects degrading, in turn encouraging audiences to rethink their own mortality, grief and loss.

“The great thing about working with digital technologies is that to some degree you have a lot of power in shaping virtual reality,” Praxmarer described. “That can be thought-provoking and offer new perspectives to an audience. If you can establish this magic moment, they are interested and you can get them talking.”

This accolade is just the latest for Polycular with other honors including the 2018 Umdasch Research Award for Learning and Education, the World Summit Award Austria for Education in 2019, and the Sustainable Entrepreneurship Award.

“We made our mark in the local creativity and innovation scene,” Praxmarer added. “We haven’t won too many international awards so this is one that stands out and we are very proud.

“We were university professors in the field of game development, interactive art and augmented reality. We set out to start a company to use creative processes combined with art, technology and innovation to make interesting projects, ideally with an impact to society. They often revolve around sustainability and awareness building. We think education is foremost to train a younger generation with digital means and games to give them a new perspective on important topics.”

Both Praxmarer and Layer-Wagner are Salzburg Global Fellows after attending the annual programs of the Young Cultural Innovators Forum (YCI Forum) in 2014 and 2015 respectively. The YCI Forum is currently taking place virtually with this year’s program considering, A Global Platform for Creative, Just and Sustainable Futures.

“I had the chance to be part of it at the very beginning of our company,” Praxmarer explained. “It was one of the best mentoring programs I’ve ever attended. I’ve attended a lot of mentorship programs from accelerators all over the Silicon Valley and other places. Salzburg Global still stands out in terms of quality, mentors, location, the people and the caring. This special vibe you can’t really describe; you really have to be there.

“This network of young people aren’t just talking pipe dreams, they actually are smart and resilient enough to pull things off. You can learn so much in one week. It’s one of the greatest places and I told my co-founder [Layer-Wagner] he had to go there. It brings you forward in your own thinking. It’s well-spent time to step back and really reflect on topics of leadership, innovation and creativity.”

Salzburg Global is a partner of the World in 2050 Awards and Praxmarer thanked Faye Hobson, YCI Forum Lead and Salzburg Global Program Manager, who first nominated Polycular.

“Without her and Salzburg Global, we wouldn’t even have entered this kind of award,” Praxmarer acknowledged. “Coming from Hallein in Salzburg, this is something really special, which we had to work very hard for. Some organizations believed in us like Salzburg Global and we hope to pay back the people that helped us. We are super proud to put Austria, Salzburg Global and Polycular on the map.”

Hobson also wished to send her congratulations on behalf of Salzburg Global.

“The YCI Forum strives to empower the next generation of changemakers. Robert, Thomas and the whole Polycular team are great examples of what can be achieved when you work hard and dream big,” Hobson said.

“I was only too pleased to nominate them for this prestigious award and even more delighted to hear they had won. It is fantastic to see our Fellows named amongst the biggest and best in global innovation.”

Looking ahead, Praxmarer says Polycular’s future is bright as they strive to shape the future of learning.

“I hope we realize our dream to redefine education through digital means,” Praxmarer added. “Using playful discovery where it’s about challenging the learner. How kids learn when they explore a room or play hide and seek. We want to find new storytelling solutions for experiential and transformative learning.”

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Education Disrupted, Education Reimagined: Special Edition E-Book
Education Disrupted, Education Reimagined: Special Edition E-Book
By: Ana C. Rold 

Salzburg Global Seminar and partners - WISE and Diplomatic Courier - launch e-book covering school responses to the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic

It is no longer news that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about massive disruption to the education ecosystem—to the learners, teachers, school leaders, parents, and policymakers alike. The changes have been so pervasive, fast-moving, and frequent that one could blink and miss them. After all, there have only been few instances in human history when disruption at this magnitude happened in the span of less than a year.

Since early February, more than a billion students have been out of school—some of them will not be able to return. UN Secretary-General António Guterres recently called this a “generational catastrophe” and indeed, some of the gains we have made in the past 25 years through the Millennium Development Goals and now the Sustainable Development Goals, were erased just in the first five months of the pandemic.

But this is not a story of despair. This is a story of resilience and hope.

The special edition e-book—Education Disrupted, Education Reimagined: Responses from education’s frontline during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond—launched on September 21, was produced in real time, as Salzburg Global Seminar, in partnership with WISE, convened key stakeholders and education leaders from over 98 countries in a three-part series of global conferences aimed at bringing the global education community together. The result is a contemporary historical record of how schools, NGOs, governments, and international organizations responded to school closures during the crisis and how they are attempting to use this crisis as a springboard to reimagine—and even transform—education in their communities and countries.

Key stakeholders on education’s frontline during the crisis, including from schools, NGOs, governments, and international organizations, contributed over 40 articles and essays, documenting the experiences, struggles, successes, and innovations of key institutions on education’s frontline.

From documenting the crisis in real-time to offering short- and long-term solutions, one question remains now: what’s next; what will change?

The e-book offers an opportunity to a global audience to make sense of what happened but it also offers a breeding ground of ideas from some of the world’s top education thinkers. It is the editors’ sincere hope that through this publication we provide the education community with a reference point from the crisis from which future research, policy, and innovation can grow. 

“It is our hope that this publication will provide the education community with a reference point from the crisis from which future research, policy, and innovation can grow,” said Dr. Asmaa Al-Fadala, editor of the publication and Director of Research and Content Development at WISE and multi-time Salzburg Global Fellow.

Salzburg Global Program Director for the series, Education for Tomorrow's World, Dominic Regester said: “In in many ways this e-book acts as a record of education responses to the disruption caused by the first phase of the pandemic. It also contains some compelling visions of achievable changes to education systems that would produce more equitable outcomes that are more relevant to 21st century lives. The pandemic has reiterated how important school is to young people and their families and has also shown many ways in which the experience of school can change.” He added: “This feels like the beginning of a much longer term project between WISE and Salzburg Global Seminar and we are excited to be a part of it.” 

Contributors include:

  • Her Excellency Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al-Thani
  • The Right Honorable Gordon Brown
  • Marc A. Brackett
  • Andreas Schleicher
  • Stefania Giannini
  • Manos Antoninis
  • Olli-Pekka Heinonen

Download the e-book here: www.salzburgglobal.org/go/education-ebook 

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Pakistan’s Best Kept Secret: Lahore Museum 
Pakistan’s Best Kept Secret: Lahore Museum 
By: Anwar Akhtar – Samosa Media Director 

Multi-time Salzburg Global Fellow, Anwar Akhtar on why his film – made with Ajoka Theatre – “Pakistan’s Best Kept Secret: Lahore Museum”, has much to say about peace, for both South Asia and the UK

You can watch the film “Pakistan’s Best Kept Secret: Lahore Museum” on YouTube

The first half of 2020 has been lively, turbulent and difficult. The Coronavirus has changed our world, no matter whether you’re in India, Pakistan or the UK.

In the UK, the virus has disproportionally affected those from South Asian and Afro-Caribbean backgrounds, with arguments and theories flying in all directions about what social, economic and biological factors are in play. It will take some time to determine fully, but initial analysis points more to nurture, though nature is there as well.

On May 25, we witnessed the horror of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, being killed by police in Minnesota, USA, suffocated with a policeman’s knee on his throat. That one brutal act has led to global support for the Black Lives Matter movement. 

This in turn has led to debates and protests around many deep seated issues that have risen to the surface – or in the case of Bristol slave trader Edward Colston’s statue, sunk to the bottom of the harbor. The UK must fully address – in our schools, colleges, universities, galleries and museums – what the British Empire was and why so much of that story has been airbrushed out of British history, from the scale of slavery to the savagery and theft of the East India Company that laid the foundations for so much of Britain’s wealth and power today. 

Like all countries, the UK was built by heroes and villains. For every Emmeline Pankhurst, Michael Faraday and Alan Turing, we also have our Robert Clives and Edward Colstons.

Debates about racism, class, religion and empire are not going away any time soon. What is in our museums matters. What is and is not taught in our schools and universities matters. These issues have attained a new prominence in 2020. 

Salzburg Global Seminar has always made the case for how arts can act as a social transformer and bring communities together. 

I have gained hugely from my time at Salzburg Global programs. At 2014’s Conflict Transformation through Culture: Peace-Building and the Arts, writers, journalists, academics, film and theatre directors, came together, to share stories, culture and heritage from the Balkans, Turkey, South Africa, Uganda, Cambodia, Korea and Ireland. This program helped me develop my thinking, the themes we explore in the Lahore Museum film. Looking at the colleagues present then, brought to life for me, Margaret Mead’s famous words that are part of Salzburg Global Seminar’s story: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

For someone involved in British arts production work and anti-racist activism for 25 years, the scale of change in the last few weeks has at times been breathtaking: statues falling, universities and business schools changing their names. Lloyd’s of London, like many institutions, at the heart of British power today, issuing apologies for their involvement in slavery and pledging to invest in social justice and equality schemes for Black British people. We’ll see if their actions live up to their words. 

But change has arrived and it is happening. Lenin’s famous words about revolutions not working to fixed timetables, describe events today: “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.”

Many young British people of all backgrounds are questioning the nature of the British Empire and notions of “belonging” in a society where issues of race, culture, language and heritage all dominate.

Surely that is to be welcomed. Great Britain is an island with a global story, a global past, a global heritage, and a former global empire. We should, if I may adapt slightly Oliver Cromwell’s words, view it warts and all.

For many young people – and not just those with South Asian or Afro-Caribbean heritage – part of understanding who they are is to uncover their own history as offspring and descendents of Empire.

But other challenges arise. Competing narratives shroud our views. There is an antagonistic, confrontational nature to some contemporary nations trying to have only one story, one culture, one history, when in reality it is always plural. I think this is especially so, in South Asia today.

The internal turmoil within states, coupled with economic, ethnic and religious tensions, add layers of complexity. Many people are often simply bewildered or angered by or choose to ignore the past. They see it as a different country.

We can learn from history and avoid the mistakes of history by studying our histories. So we need books, films and documentaries to keep informing us. We need to study the archives, the literature, the paintings – and yes, to look at the statues. 

This is why the documentary I made with playwright Shahid Nadeem from Ajoka Theatre, “Pakistan’s Best Kept Secret: Lahore Museum”, is so important. It starts us on this journey, informing us that everyone in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and the UK has a shared history, a shared story.

Lahore Museum has a rich, ancient and varied collection, which demonstrates the historical wealth and religious and cultural plurality of Pakistan – one of the largest Muslim-majority countries in the world, but also of course with large indigenous, mistreated and marginalised Hindu, Sikh and Christian communities. 

Our film explores the significance of the Lahore Museum – not just in Asia, but also in the UK. Through its magnificent collection we explore stories of ancient cultures: Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Sikh, Muslim, and those of empire, trade, the East India Company, the contribution of British Indian soldiers in two World Wars, Partition and the creation of Pakistan. 

What Sumaria Samad, who was Director of Lahore Museum, and Nadeem have to say about the museum’s extraordinary collection and the history of the region is both compulsive viewing and highly informative. They also give some insight into life in Pakistan today and the future role of the museum within Pakistan’s wider social, political, religious and cultural context, as well as Pakistan’s relationship with the UK.

So much can be gained by this approach of looking at our shared religious and cultural traditions, as well as historic tensions through the ages. Lahore Museum has many stories to tell and our film, can help educate a lot of people online, especially now that colleges and universities have been closed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Most important of all – and the sincere wish of all those involved in making this film – is that perhaps it can help bridge the gaps and divides, and heal some of the hurt, the animosity and the trust deficits that exist between India and Pakistan, so we do not curse another generation in both countries and in their huge diasporas to grow up with sectarian tensions, wondering when, if ever, there can be good relations and peace between us.

Pakistan’s Best Kept Secret: Lahore Museum


Reviews of Pakistan’s Best Kept Secret, Lahore Museum    

“It struck me, watching this revealing film, that this Museum throws light not only onto thousands of beautiful and fascinating works of art, but also onto a body of thought, a concept of society, an ecumenical vision and a long view that risks being erased by many forces in the contemporary world.”  – Dame Marina Warner, DBE, CBE, Professor of English and Creative Writing, Birkbeck

“The real star of the film is the museum itself, founded at the height of the British Raj, with John Lockwood Kipling (father of Rudyard) as its first curator. As the film’s title implies, it’s a museum which, if it were in almost any other country, would enjoy worldwide fame.”  – Edward Mortimer, author of Faith & Power: The Politics of Islam, former adviser to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and long-serving program advisor to Salzburg Global Seminar

“The conversation...is, first and foremost, a pleasure to eavesdrop on.  All three protagonists seem to be having fun, to be enjoying the pursuit of serious questions in an extraordinary context. At the Lahore Museum, showing a collection that reflects the serial transformations of this complex country poses thorny problems of identity and ownership.  Pakistan’s relatively recent acquisition, in contrast to its long and fluid history, of an apparently monolithic religious identity, makes the museum’s address to a richly diverse past more difficult and more essential.”– Dr Jim Harris, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Teaching Curator, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford


Anwar Akhtarwas born and grew up in Manchester, UK. He is Founder and Director of The Samosa, a UK arts and journalism charity that works to embed diversity in the arts and humanities curriculum in schools, colleges and universities, and produces media that explores cultural and social issues. His latest film is “Pakistan’s Best Kept Secret – Lahore Museum” and his Manchester 4/4 talk, “Cities, Tolerance, Multi Culturalism” is available online. Anwar was the production consultant on the play “Dara,” working with Ajoka Theatre Pakistan and National Theatre UK.  The first South Asian history play at the UK’s National Theatre, “Dara” was seen by more than 30,000 people in 2015. “Dara” tells the story of Mughal India, raising questions about religious freedom, tolerance and clerical power that still resonate today. Anwar also led the Royal Society of Arts’ Pakistan Calling project, which produced more than 60 films looking at identity, education, equality, culture, religion, women’s and minority rights in Britain and Pakistan. Anwar was previously project director of the Rich Mix Cultural Foundation, where he led the capital and business development of a new £26 million arts centre in East London. He is a mult-time Fellow of Salzburg Global Seminar, having attended programs in the series Culture, the Arts and Society, Holocaust Education and Genocide Prevention, and the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change.

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Salzburg Global Helps Launch Podcast Series Addressing Needs of Children
Image created by Nubefy Design for All. Image of child greeting grandparent in video conversation. Submitted for United Nations Global Call Out To Creatives - help stop the spread of COVID-19Image created by Nubefy Design for All. Submitted for United Nations Global Call Out To Creatives - help stop the spread of COVID-19
Salzburg Global Helps Launch Podcast Series Addressing Needs of Children
By: Salzburg Global Seminar 

Salzburg Global joins consortium led by Amal Alliance to produce podcast episodes for families and caregivers in vulnerable communities

Salzburg Global Seminar is proud to be a partner in a new podcast series addressing the needs of children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The "We're In This Together" podcast series features six episodes and is aimed at families and caregivers in vulnerable communities, including refugees and migrants.

The episodes provide meaningful activities that reinforce emotional well-being. Caregivers can receive insights on how to enhance self-resilience and explore options to support themselves and children of all age groups.

The activities require no materials and discuss topics such as hygiene, empathy, tolerance, patience, and healthy expression.

At the start of the pandemic Danielle de la Fuente, a Salzburg Global Fellow and executive director of Amal Alliance, had the idea of rapidly puting together a consortium that could produce a resource that could be easily shared to help parents and caregivers during the crisis. The podcast series grew out of this. Fellow Salzburg Global Fellows Marios Dakos and Louka Parry lent their support.

Amal Alliance led the consortium which included Salzburg Global, Learning in Times of Crisis, Karanga, and Qatar Foundation International (QFI).

De La Fuente, Parry, and Salzburg Global program director Dominic Regester recorded the podcasts in English. QFI provided funding for NaTaKallam, a translation agency that employs displaced people, to translate the six podcasts into Arabic, French, and Spanish.

NGOs and country teams at World Vision, ILO, UNICEF, Education Above All, and World University Service have already shared the podcasts.

Salzburg Global and Amal Alliance co-sponsored a pledge at the UNHCR Global Refugee Forum in December 2019 to encourage open quality education resources for refugees. The "We're In This Together" podcast series is open-source and available to all.

The podcasts are on SoundCloud (English, Arabic, Spanish, French). Mixcloud, and Amal Alliance's website. They are also available to distribute via WhatsApp. Download audio recordings on this drive.

De La Fuente said, "We are facing unprecedented and challenging times. The needs of children, especially those of vulnerable communities, are at the forefront of this pandemic.

"By leveraging each other's strengths, we formed a unified approach providing meaningful activities to enhance self-resilience and reinforce emotional well-being. May our current collaboration should serve as a reminder that although forced to be physically apart, we are all in this together."

Regester, who's responsible for Salzburg Global's programs on education, said, "In December 2019 we convened a program on Education and Workforce Opportunities for Refugees and Migrants as part of our Education for Tomorrow's World series. A significant portion of that program focused on the importance of Social and Emotional Learning.  

"When the COVID-19 pandemic started, Danielle put together a consortium of SEL experts, psychiatrists, and specialists in refugee education to write and record a series of short podcasts. These were podcasts that could give caregivers daily activities to enhance self-resilience and explore possibilities to support themselves and children of all age groups and learning stages. Several of the consortium members, including Danielle herself, had participated in the program here in December 2019.  

"We were really pleased to be part of this and incredibly grateful that one of our long term education partners, QFI, was abler to fund the translation of the podcasts into Arabic, French, and Spanish. I hope that they are a useful resource at this challenging time."

Update - In January 2020, the "We're In This Together" podcast received an mEducation Alliance award nomination in the Crisis and Conflict Response category.

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Moving from Me to We in the Upper Midwest: Creating “Deeply Human” Spaces Online
Moving from Me to We in the Upper Midwest: Creating “Deeply Human” Spaces Online
By: Louise Hallman 

Young Cultural Innovators from the American Midwest “meet up” despite lockdown as regional program moves online

As Minneapolis, where the first-ever regional program for the Upper Midwest Young Cultural Innovators (YCI) “hub” should have been held, entered its sixth week of lockdown, the YCIs of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota and the 23 Native nations that share the same geography instead convened their regional meeting online.

Opening with responses to the question “What is currently bringing you joy?” the artists, creative community leaders and cultural changemakers of the Salzburg Global Forum for Young Cultural Innovators proved to be in good spirits as they joined the morning-long program  Moving from Me to We in the Upper Midwest despite the prolonged sense of physical isolation and disconnection.

What has changed?

For some of the Native American participants, that isolation and disconnection has been especially acute. They spoke of feeling disconnected from their family and community members who are isolated on reservations, many with poor internet connections, while they remain in lockdown in cities, unable to physically participate ceremonies such the powwows that celebrate the arrival of the spring and summer. 

The global pandemic has also served to highlight societal disparities. Minnesota already had the worst rate of removal of Black and Native children from families in the country before the pandemic. The pandemic is worsening these issues. From a lack of strong internet connections limiting who can participate in educational, cultural and social gatherings, to growing child protection issues as reporting decreases, Native populations have again been hit especially hard. As one YCI remarked, there is a real struggle to keep native people as part of the local, state and national conversations as stimulus packages are designed and cities and states start to look beyond their lockdowns. 

Not all cities and states in the Upper Midwest have implemented full lockdowns, but the vast majority have mandated some form of social distancing measures, heavily impacting the arts and culture sectors with events canceled, venues shuttered and even parks closed. Federal stimulus packages, however, are difficult for artists and “micro business” owners to access as they struggle to prove their losses of income.

In much of the region, the arts and culture sector heavily relies on revenue from the tourism industry, both from visitors attending events and purchasing crafts and from state tourism boards. With some lockdowns and social distancing measures continuing for many weeks and months to come and out-of-state tourists discouraged from travelling, the artists and the sector as a whole will continue to suffer from a lack of funding.

As a YCI from South Dakota remarked, the impact of the crisis has been somewhat delayed on the less-populous parts of the country, where there are fewer artists but also fewer organizations to support them. “The faucet of funding is about to trickle,” they feared. 

There was “a window of unpoliticized activity where people were coming together,” said one YCI, but “that is over,” they lamented. Across the region, responses to the pandemic have become incredibly politicized with public protests and threats to sue state governments. “How can we cut through the political noise and find empathy for small business owners?” asked one YCI. 

There is a huge amount of uncertainty for the region and its individual towns, reservations, cities, states and communities. “We don’t know how to plan for the future if we don’t know how what the impact will ultimately be,” said one YCI.

How are communities responding?

Like many sectors and activities, arts and culture have moved online in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Even powwows have “gone digital”, with families filming and sharing videos of them dancing, drumming and singing in dedicated “social distancing powwow” Facebook groups. Such groups highlight the importance of the arts, culture and “deeply human” connections, especially such trying times. 

Other socially distant artistic activities highlighted by the YCIs included “porch concerts” with musicians performing online and/or for their neighbors with signs displaying digital payment information like Venmo IDs to collect donations; weekly livestreams billed as “digital-first Fridays”; “makers’ markets” selling artists’ wares on Instagram; and YouTube video tours around local museums. With many people turning to arts and crafts as a way to help them deal with their individual isolation and the resulting mental health stresses during lockdown, artists are offering online classes and delivering “quarantine arts kits.” In the public policy space, there have been calls for artists to be engaged to help “bring joy” to public spaces, such as by redesigning signage or installing art works in public parks. 

Much of this is currently being offered for free – but artists still need financial support. One Twin City-based nonprofit has been offering pro bono consultation to arts and culture groups to help them find new, more sustainable forms of revenue. This has been a “heart wrenching” experience said one YCI, as many groups that are reliant on grants have seen their funding pulled to support more immediate COVID-19-related causes. “What if we can’t save everyone?” 

What is needed for the future?

The arts clearly have an important role to play in supporting people through and after the crisis, not only on a personal level to address self-care, mental health and trauma but also on community, city and state levels to address wider issues such as political divides and social inequity. 

To be able to do this, the arts need funding. However, philanthropy too has its limits, with the sector facing reductions in endowments due to stock market volatility and reduced staffing impacting the ability to address new applications. Many funders have responded with automatic renewals for existing recipients and a shift away from funding prizes, travel and professional development in favor of relief funds for grantees. As one participant in the YCI Upper Midwest Regional Meeting remarked, foundations “can’t wait until the next board meeting. We need to make decisions now if we want to save the arts sector.” Where can these new forms of revenue and financial support for the arts be found?

Much emphasis has been put on “innovation” and “digital connections” during the pandemic, but as one YCI remarked, “Innovation doesn’t have to be high-tech-based,” urging their fellow YCIs to consider how they can make use of “low-tech” such as radio and mail to connect with their audiences and communities.

The YCIs of the Upper Midwest have been tapping into and connecting with the wider, national and global YCI network and called on Salzburg Global to help them also connect more directly with the wider-still Salzburg Global Fellowship – truly “moving from me to we.” The growing reliance on online platforms and prevalence of online meetings from large-scale webinars to small “virtual coffee dates” is making these connections all the more possible across international borders and time zones. 

If digital convening is to remain the norm for some time to come, then everyone, especially creative, artistic people, need to work to “keep the humanity” during Zoom meetings. Opening up our homes, including our families and pets, and encouraging two-way discussions rather than one-way lectures were all encouraged – as were “virtual jamming sessions” for musicians. 

As one YCI remarked in closing and indeed as was reflected in the “what is currently bringing you joy?” in the opening introductions: “In isolation people are recognizing what they value, which is primarily culture and art and the togetherness those provide.” Even in the digital age, enjoying the arts and being “deeply human” remains key.  

This virtual regional meeting of the Upper Midwest YCI Hub was generously supported by The Bush Foundation and The McKnight Foundation

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Creating Digital Connections Across American Cities
Creating Digital Connections Across American Cities
By: Louise Hallman 

Young Cultural Innovators from across Baltimore, Detroit, Memphis and New Orleans “meet up” despite lockdown as regional program moves online

“Let’s arrive together!” declared Amina Dickerson as she opened the first-ever online Young Cultural Innovators (YCI) Regional Hub program and over 40 creative changemakers and community leaders from across four YCI city hubs across the US – Baltimore, Detroit, Memphis and New Orleans – all joined a Zoom call at the same time. 

While the duration and location of the program Creating Connections Across American Cities” might have not been as planned – for a few hours online instead of over a weekend at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Le Mondo arts venue and Waller Gallery in Baltimore, Md., USA – the same YCI energy could be found and connections were certainly strengthened, even in the trying times of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Calling in from their respective lockdowns, the Young Cultural Innovators, participants of the YCI Forum from the past six years, were encouraged by Dickerson, many-time YCI Forum facilitator to “Get comfortable, close your eyes, take deep breaths. Inhale the intentions for the day, and exhale all the stuff you want to get rid of.” With a land acknowledgement led by Ojibwe and Chicano rapper, Sacramento Knoxx, preferred pronouns declared and a visible joy at being brought back together, the inclusive space typical of the Young Cultural Innovators Forum was achieved – even on Zoom. This positivity was reflected by many in their “one word” given to start the day, with responses including “energy”, “cozy,” “grateful,” “calm,” “open,” and “happy.” 

But not all was positive. Many YCIs confessed to feeling “stuck,” “scattered,” “unfocused” and “unsure.” As large urban areas with sizeable populations of people of color, many of the communities that the Salzburg Global Young Cultural Innovators of Baltimore, Detroit, Memphis and New Orleans represent and serve have been hit especially hard by the virus. 

With communal and exhibition spaces shut down and events and community outreach cancelled due to social distancing measures, many of the YCIs are grappling with how best to serve their communities in these times of COVID-19. 

Some have been addressing immediate basic needs such as providing food and shelter for vulnerable groups, either through direct volunteering or by mobilizing other groups. Much of this mobilization and information sharing happens online (as with many things these days), but this raises further challenges of how to serve vulnerable portions of communities, such as the homeless and the elderly, who are not online. Some YCIs have been using “snail mail” and flyers in efforts to counter this problem.

Others are leading fundraising and promotional efforts to help other artists. “Fundraising is on everyone’s minds right now,” admitted a YCI from Detroit. While various grants and loans are being made available both from federal and municipal governments as well as foundations and private philanthropists, artists, musicians and other creative producers with irregular incomes particularly struggle to prove exact loss of income, making accessing such funds difficult. 

As much activity – including the arts, through such activities as online film festivals, arts-led discussions, and classes – moves online, there’s a fear that “digital redlining” is happening, with the exclusion common in cities in the physical space being replicated online, excluding marginalized people and communities even further from the arts. “Arts and culture is necessary to bridge communities; digital isn’t as inclusive as we think,” said a YCI from New Orleans. 

Many of the cities represented have already dealt with significant shared trauma, such as New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. With many people turning to the arts – either as a sector or individuals – to provide distraction and comfort amid the crisis, many artists feel a pressure to support their communities at a time when they themselves are struggling. “There’s a feeling of needing to overcompensate with online activity to stay relevant,” worried another New Orleans YCI. Addressing one’s own mental health through “radical acts of self-care and self-love” is much needed, suggested a YCI from Baltimore, to help ensure the arts can bounce-back post-COVID-19 and notburnout in the meantime. 

What Comes Next?

After sharing their respective cities’ struggles, thoughts turned to the future. Questions of how to reopen post-lockdown abound across sectors, and this is no different in the arts. Through breakout group conversations covering topics including the role of the arts in healing collective trauma, sustainable connections between the cultural sector and public policy, and rethinking business models for cultural initiatives, the YCIs considered the future for their respective organizations, work, and cities. 

Some concerns are immediate: “Will there be enough PPE (personal protective equipment) in order to reopen cultural spaces?” Others are more long-term: “How can we build back better?” Given the “squandered opportunities” post-9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, there was a shared desire among the YCIs to not miss this potential for a once-in-a-generation shift in how communities interact with each other and the arts. 

To build back better post-COVID-19, the arts sector needs capacity building, with some YCIs looking to how they can shift their grant-funded non-profit organizations to more self-sustaining social enterprises. 

A mind-shift on the value of the arts is also needed. Many artists, photographers and writers are “being asked to give and give and give” at the moment with little to no remuneration, unlike other disasters where they might receive hazard pay, lamented a YCI from Detroit. How can we collectively shift the mentalities of not only those who rely on and support the sector but also those within it to better value the work being done and the community service being rendered?

This was “No time for despair,” said Dickerson in closing. “It is going to be the creative spirits who will define what a new normal is going to be.”

Galvanized by their renewed connections across their cities, the YCIs committed themselves to making this program “a beginning, not an end” with proposals for future programming and regular monthly meetings. One upside of lockdown: the power of digital convening is clear.  

This virtual regional meeting of the YCI Hubs in Baltimore, Detroit, Memphis and New Orleans was generously supported by The Kresge Foundation

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Is Philanthropy Using Inequitable Practices to Achieve Equity?
Is Philanthropy Using Inequitable Practices to Achieve Equity?
By: Lindsay Hill & Dwayne Proctor 

Lindsay Hill, Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Raikes Foundation and Dwayne Proctor, Senior Adviser to the President, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation open the new series of Salzburg Questions

This blog is the first in a new ad hoc series, the Salzburg Questions for Philanthropy

Before the coronavirus became a global pandemic and illuminated the life and death consequences of racism, poverty, segregation, and persistent underinvestment in low-income communities, philanthropy had been undergoing an important transition, focusing more intently on how its white dominance was affecting its ability to advance sustainable improvements in the lives of those who have been historically marginalized. That transition was just getting underway for many organizations when COVID-19 hit. Now is not the time for foundations to back away from their commitment to equity in the spirit of responding to this crisis. The health and economic impacts of this pandemic are real and responding in a moment of crisis is essential. That is exactly why foundations need to double down on our commitment to equity and work together to mitigate the effects of this crisis.

Here are five things we’re thinking about:

How do grant processes perpetuate inequities?

Unless we enlist people or organizations we know directly, most foundations approach grant funding through invitation-only processes. The result is that those who are first in line are usually in positions of power or privilege who already are in our networks. That process too often excludes those from communities most impacted whose efforts need support to make a bigger difference. The invitation-only approach is fairly embedded within most foundations so how can we be more inclusive? Are we using this moment to build new relationships with leaders and organizations whose leadership must be elevated during this time? Are we partnering with those who are acutely aware of the ways in which COVID-19 is exacerbating long-standing inequities? Are we being pushed to reexamine our own biases and limitations to better respond to our communities in this moment?

Are we intentionally recruiting and hiring a diverse staff?

Are we doing enough to enlist a diversity of people who have lived experiences tied to discrimination, racism, sexism, classism, ableism, in sectors like education, health, housing, or criminal justice so they can influence how we fund the work? When the Raikes Foundation, for example, shifted its recruiting and hiring practices to focus on equity and inclusion it produced tangible results, including increasing the percentage of our grantee partners led by people of color. The foundation is now a majority-people of color organization. 

Are we transparent enough?

Foundations need to be more transparent about how board members are selected, a process that has historically been very opaque. And, we need to reckon with who we are funding. There is tension in the field of philanthropy right now around a basic question: if you’re going to advance equity, do you continue to fund the same grantees who are not explicitly equity focused and help them along or do you seek out less traditional partners that are steeped in equity and have more credibility with the groups of people we want to benefit from our grant support? We believe it is more important than ever to seek out and support organizations most deeply embedded in our communities. 

What role does leadership play?

When it comes to equity, leadership can be more important than dollars. Foundation leaders that are all in with equity see it as their responsibility to use their power and privilege to shift mindsets and the behaviors of peers. Leaders have been most successful when they take time to educate their boards and founders, bringing them along to better understand how their foundations could have greater impact in the sectors we care about by centering equity in our strategy development and grant processes. 

Do we pay enough attention to where endowments are invested?

There are a lot of contradictions between where foundations invest their dollars and the issues they support. For example, there are foundations across the country working to improve the lives of boys and men of color. Incarceration is one of those threats to improved lives, however, those same foundations may be investing in companies that profit off mass incarceration like telecommunications, transportation or food vending. How are we reconciling this? 

It is easy to say that this work should be put off while we manage through this crisis. But if philanthropy is committed to advancing equity it must continue the work to reckon with the ways in which it has contributed to perpetuating inequities. “We’ll do this later” no longer works when we are staring these inequities in the face like never before. And if we aren’t willing to center equity during this critical time, what is the risk that we will contribute to growing inequities coming out of this moment? When might it be time for us to get out of the way for those who are willing to bravely walk in the direction of equity and justice?

Lindsay Hill and Dwayne Proctor are Fellows of the program Toward a More Inclusive and Diverse Global Philanthropy: Strategies to Address Social, Economic and Historic Inequality

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Responding to Civic Priorities through Public Art
Art Fellows pose for a group photoArt Fellows pose for a group photo
Responding to Civic Priorities through Public Art
By: Soila Kenya 

Salzburg Global Fellows Alphonse Smith and Heidi Schmalbach help build artists’ capacity and address civic needs

In November 2019, ten artists in New Orleans, Louisiana, participated in a series of training sessions to create art installations at key intersections near drainage canals and pumping stations. The aim? To build awareness of how the city’s drainage infrastructure works.

Alphonse Smith and Heidi Schmalbach developed the training after receiving a micro-grant from Salzburg Global Seminar and the Kresge Foundation. Smith and Schmalbach, who attended the third and fourth programs of the Salzburg Global Forum for Young Cultural Innovators respectively, wanted to help local artists respond to civic priorities through public art interventions and creative place-making.

What came to fruition is the Civic Art Fellowship, a partnership between Arts Council New Orleans, of which Smith is executive director, and the Gentilly Resilience District. The District is an initiative led by the City of New Orleans’ Office of Resilience and Sustainability that aims to reduce flood risk, slow land subsidence, improve energy reliability, and encourage neighborhood revitalization.

Working in partnership with the District, Arts Council New Orleans is bringing an artistic flair to civic duty. Smith said, “The original concept was developed after meeting St. Paul artist and YCI fellow Amanda Lovelee in Salzburg, after which time a group of New Orleans YCIs visited Minneapolis to research best practice models.”

Heidi Schmalbach, a fellow YCI from New Orleans, was involved in the project as the former executive director and now an executive advisor to Arts Council New Orleans. She said, “There are a lot of people who already work for the city… in particular, the city of New Orleans, who are already creative professionals, artists, hobbyists when they’re not in their nine to five city job[s].

“And for various reasons, people feel like they have to hang up their creative hat when they walk in the door of city government. So we’re interested in the creative energies of people who are already in city government jobs and how to design with artists new ways to interface with [the public].”

Other partners involved with the Civic Art Fellowship include Crescent City Renaissance Alliance, the Water Leaders Institute, and Prospect New Orleans. The specialized training equips artists with technical knowledge related to critical civic issues facing New Orleans while providing peer-to-peer learning, mentorship, and social networking opportunities for the cohort.

The Civic Art Fellowship aims to produce public art along Gentilly’s water features to enhance the public’s understanding of living with water. While doing so, the Fellowship builds the artists’ capacity to address critical civic needs. Artists provide a sense of place through their work to advance future use and development of the location. They create lasting, innovative artwork that influences and shapes the development of the Gentilly Resilience District.

Despite the project’s projected gains, convincing government officials at the beginning of the process was far from easy. “There’s a key disconnect between the government and arts sector,” said Schmalbach. Smith added the critical issue is the two sectors don’t speak the same language. “I think we have a common language that we can speak, but that just hasn’t been defined yet,” he explained.

Smith said it was a matter of aligning agendas and ensuring each side felt their priorities were being addressed. Rather than merely commissioning beautiful artwork for the project, the Fellowship went a step further and also incorporated the artists’ training to benefit New Orleans’ creative scene. The city got what they wanted in artwork, but there was also a great benefit enjoyed by the participating artists.

Smith believes Arts Council New Orleans – and members of the YCI New Orleans Hub – can bridge divides between artists and government officials. He said, “It helps to give credibility and a little bit more weight to the idea that we’re not just these crazy arts non-profit administrators who are coming up with this idea that this is something that folks believe in. So to be awarded a micro-grant for that proposal says that the idea is valid. We’re hopeful that we can sort of build on that as we move forward with the program.”


The Salzburg Global Forum for Young Cultural Innovators empowers rising talents in the creative sector to drive social, economic, and urban change. Launched in 2014, it is building a global network of 500 competitively-selected changemakers in “hub” communities who design collaborative projects, build skills, gain mentors, and connect to upcoming innovators in their cities and countries.    

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Feeling at Home
Mira Luce Hamdan (left) at Salzburg Global SeminarMira Luce Hamdan (left) at Salzburg Global Seminar
Feeling at Home
By: Mira Luce Hamdan 

In July 2019, Mira Luce Hamdan traveled from Lebanon to Austria to attend the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change. When they arrived, they rediscovered their passion for media – and set out on a new life path

I don’t know how to explain in a few short sentences what the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change means to me. It sounds silly, but the Academy is more a feeling than a place: it is friendship, love, acceptance, validation, passion, enlightenment, home.

I felt truly at home for the first time ever when I was at Schloss Leopoldskron. I met the most interesting people, made friendships and connections, and I found something that I thought I had lost: I found my passion.

I struggled a lot when getting my bachelor’s degree. Somewhere along the way, I forgot why I liked media and media studies. However, the three weeks I spent in Parker Hall with the amazing instructors and my brilliant colleagues, the conversations we had with each other and with guest speakers, and the field trips around Austria reminded me of my love for media. One of the most amazing things is that everybody made sure to let me know and to remind me naturally and genuinely, that I’m actually good at what I’m doing.

The amount of validation, love, and acceptance that I felt in the Schloss and in those halls will forever fill my heart and push me further. I will always remember every kind thing and every encouraging word I heard from every person in that place because it all pushed me towards a better future. Before attending the Salzburg Academy, I had planned to get a Ph.D. in social work (and I’m sure I would have been great at it). But the Academy and the people there reminded me that my love and my future is media.

The part that still amazes me is that I almost didn’t attend the program. Initially, I wasn’t going to apply for the Salzburg Academy. Financially I was just not going to make it. Then, my professor told me that I could apply for a scholarship. I could barely believe it when I got the email telling me I was accepted into the program with a 50% scholarship. It was Christmas and my birthday all at once.

There is a Welsh word that loosely translates to yearning for home: “hiraeth.” I guess if I had to put it in one word, “hiraeth” is what the Salzburg Academy will always be to me.

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New Timeliness Metrics Seek to Improve Pandemic Preparedness
Image: Martin Sanchez/Unsplash
New Timeliness Metrics Seek to Improve Pandemic Preparedness
By: Salzburg Global Seminar 

Fellows devise first-ever “One Health” timeliness metrics to track improvements in disease surveillance

As the novel coronavirus continues to grip the world, it is clear that few countries were prepared for this pandemic. However, a pioneering group of Salzburg Global Fellows, funded by US-based non-profit Ending Pandemics, aims to improve global preparedness for both COVID-19 and future epidemics. Together, they have designed a new system to assess how quickly countries can find outbreaks and stop them before they become deadly global pandemics.

The new timeliness metrics for One Health surveillance were developed at Salzburg Global Seminar’s program on Finding Outbreaks Faster in late 2019, building on earlier work to develop timeliness metrics for the public health sector in 2018. The programs developed “Outbreak Milestones” to enable tracking of timeliness metrics for disease surveillance and response across human and animal outbreaks. 

The Outbreak Milestones for public health were the product of years of pilot testing by Ending Pandemics with country partners and expert consultation with diverse stakeholders. They were further refined by Salzburg Global Fellows in November 2018 and incorporated into key WHO country guidance in early 2019. 

These new Outbreak Milestones go one step further, recognizing critical interconnections between human, animal, and environmental health to have broad applicability to a range of disease outbreaks. It is understood that the SARS-CoV-2 virus first developed in animals before transferring to humans. In recent years other zoonoses – pathogens carried by animals that infect humans – also led to SARS, MERS and Ebola. This interconnectedness prompted Ending Pandemics to lead development of timeliness metrics for “One Health”, recognizing that an integrated, multi-sector approach to disease surveillance is essential.  

Get Prepared

In February as the world was just starting to recognize the possible scale of the current pandemic, Mark Smolinski, president of Ending Pandemics, called SARS-CoV-2 a “wake-up call,” adding “Outbreaks such as this that spread from animals to humans will continue to occur. My motto is, ‘Don’t be scared, get prepared.’”

Developed collaboratively by Ending Pandemics and 35 Salzburg Global Fellows from across the world recognized as international experts in public health, epidemiology, veterinary medicine, and ecology, the One Health Timeliness Metrics are designed around “milestones”: the dates when an outbreak is predicted, detected, verified and responded to, when the authorities are notified, and when a multisectoral investigation is launched, lab tests conducted, control measures implemented and the public informed.

“We recognize that this release coincides with a critical point in the progression of COVID-19,” said Adam Crawley, Program Officer for Ending Pandemics, as the One Health Timeliness Metrics were released in May 2020. 

“Some countries are beginning to pivot from initial response activities and strict social distancing measures to building preparedness capabilities needed for continued early detection and containment. Early detection, timely testing, and rapid response are necessities for combatting this pandemic, and the Outbreak Milestones and Timeliness Metrics provide countries with a framework to monitor their ongoing performance.”

Political Will

Lack of preparedness has been a common failing in many – though not all - countries’ efforts to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic, as has the lack of consistent responses to sound scientific advice. 

“We are proud of our Fellows for developing what could prove to be a valuable tool in tackling the next phases of the current pandemic and to halt future outbreaks at a much earlier stage, wherever these begin” said Salzburg Global Vice President and Chief Program Officer, Clare Shine. “But such tools can only achieve their full potential if there is risk literacy and political will at national and international levels, aligned with best available scientific guidance.

“Founded in the wake of World War II, Salzburg Global has challenged current and future leaders to shape a better world for over 70 years. As the world enters a new era of great upheaval, we call on political leaders to support and work with scientific advisors using these cutting-edge innovations to prevent and mitigate future risks and to help communities and economies build back better.”

The One Health Timeliness Metrics are available for download here:

Download One Health Timeliness Metrics as a PDF

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Far Away From Home: LGBT* Activism in the Diaspora
Bisi Alimi (left) and Faris Cuchi Gezahegn (right) at the Salzburg Global LGBT* Forum in 2017
Far Away From Home: LGBT* Activism in the Diaspora
By: Soila Kenya 

We catch up with Salzburg Global LGBT* Forum Fellows Faris Cuchi Gezahegn and Bisi Alimi on the highs and lows of fighting a war from afar

“My day usually starts with some meditation then I get ready for the office. And because we are remote – my colleagues are based in Nigeria and I’m here in the UK – we spend a lot of time communicating. We spend more time on Zoom trying to get things done,” said Bisi Alimi in an interview with Salzburg Global.

Alimi was forced to leave his home country of Nigeria and relocate to the UK after receiving death threats for being an openly gay man who is credited with being the first Nigerian to come out on national television.

Apart from founding and directing of the Bisi Alimi Foundation, which “advocates for the rights and dignity of LGBT people in Nigeria by addressing public opinion and accelerating social acceptance,” he is also a public speaker, storyteller, campaigner, actor, and vlogger. 

“When I was in Nigeria, I think my biggest risk was being an openly gay man in a society that thinks that I don’t deserve to be alive,” he said. 

He has spent decades at the vanguard of the fight for LGBT rights despite constant abuse and attacks and the further stigma of being HIV+. 

He attended the Salzburg Global LGBT* Forum program Home: Safety, Wellness, and Belonging in 2017 where he explained his approach to using Instagram. On this platform, he publishes short videos about his views on topics that require greater debate, diverging opinions and general attention. Alimi has a great following online and he personally interacts often with his followers, especially as he is no longer based in Nigeria.

In 2019, inspired by Ugandan activists he had met in Salzburg, Alimi and his Foundation held its first pride event in Lagos, which had to be coded as a “variety night.” “There was a lot of controversy around it; whether or not it was a ‘pride’ event... People argue that pride is marching on the street. However, at the core of it is what you’re celebrating,” he said.

He explains that as an activist living in the diaspora, he is dealing with unprecedented challenges such as facing discrimination not only for his sexual identity but also for being a black man.

“I had to start redefining or trying to reclassify my masculinity within all of the narrative around ‘Men can’t be this or that’ and trying to fight about what makes a man and my man enough?” he recounts.

Ethiopian non-binary queer activist Faris Cuchi Gezahegn is also no stranger to the harsh reality facing many queer Africans. Following death threats, they were forced to flee to Austria, where, together with fellow activist and Salzburg Global LGBT* Forum Fellow Noël Iglessias, they successfully applied for asylum. 

Despite leaving Ethiopia, Gezahegn is still committed to activism, working now with AfroRainbowAustria, Queer Base and House of Guramayle, the latter of which they cofounded to “put a face to the queer movement in Ethiopia.” 

Through this work, Gezahegn was invited to address the Universal Periodic Review Report Consideration for Ethiopia, at the Human Rights Council in Switzerland and the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) in Rwanda, where they advocated for the inclusion of LGBT people in the Ethiopian government’s national HIV/AIDS prevention roadmap. “It is historic and symbolic. We aimed to challenge the Ethiopian government on the international stage for the first time,” they explain. 

But even life in Austria is not without risk. “After I moved here, I’ve been attacked four times physically,” they explain. “But at the same time, I am living in a space where if anything happens to me, whoever did it would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, which is different from when I was Ethiopia where I was just a random person who got erased.”

Istanbul-based British photojournalist Bradley Secker, who is also a Fellow of the Salzburg Global LGBT* Forum, explains how meeting Gezahegn was an inspiration. In his Gayropa project that seeks to document the lives of LGBT refugees in Europe, he approached Gezahegn with the request to include them in the project.

“It’s often slightly odd at first to have me tagging along and joining someone to various things they’d normally not have a photographer documenting, but Faris was natural, relaxed and confident from the start,” Secker said.

Both Gezahegn and Alimi see the Salzburg Global community being stepping stones for them in their journeys with Gezahegn recounting that they felt “very safe and loved” as they dealt with “a roller-coaster of feelings as we build a new home.”

On the ongoing fight for equality, the two agree that combining voices is the way to go. “No one is free when one part of the society is not free,” says Alimi. When speaking about how allies can help, he explains that “it’s not about them specifically going for gay rights, but intersecting their own struggles as well.”

“It [intersectionality] has to be number one,” agrees Gezahegn. “We also need to leverage the expertise we have on the continent.”

* LGBT: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. We are using this term as it is currently widely used in human rights conversations on sexual orientation and gender identity in many parts of the world, and we would wish it to be read as inclusive of other cultural concepts, contemporary or historical, to express sexuality and gender, intersex and gender non-conforming identities. We acknowledge and respect individuals’ preferred pronouns. 

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Building Healthier Communities
Building Healthier Communities
By: Salzburg Global Fellows 

Fellows of Salzburg Global programs on healthier and more equitable communities pen blog series for The BMJ

In 2017 and 2018, Salzburg Global Seminar in partnership with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation convened a series of three programs exploring the conditions which can create and protect health and wellbeing beyond a traditional focus on health care. The three sessions covered hospitals, urban planning, and childhood obesity.

In the intervening months, several Salzburg Global Fellows of those programs have come together to write a series of articles for The BMJ, all of which are available for free. The articles in this collection reflect the wide ranging discussions by program participants from around the world, identifying challenges and opportunities for building healthier communities.

John Lotherington, Salzburg Global Program Director said: "We’re delighted to see this collection of articles arising from our sessions in collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on Building Healthy Communities: the Role of Hospitals and Building Healthy, Equitable Communities: The Role of Inclusive Urban Development and Investment*. They are great contributions to our joint goal of how better to build a culture of health, bringing together stakeholders from diverse sectors and from every continent.

"We should pay tribute to all the authors, who carried the energy and ideas forward from the session, and despite onerous 'day jobs' continued these collaborations to produce such fascinating articles which, through BMJ Online, will influence thinking around the world."

The Role of Hospitals

GDP and the economics of despair
We should switch to a measure that promotes health, not consumption, says Harry Burns

Hospitals could be anchors for an economy focused on wellbeing
Paul Simpson asks how can healthcare systems help build healthy societies beyond providing high quality medical care

Can New Zealand’s wellbeing budget help address social inequalities?
Plans for a wellbeing budget have been met with both scepticism and hope, reports Anna Matheson

Lowering hospital walls to achieve health equity
Hospitals have a pivotal role in reducing health inequities for indigenous people and other marginalised groups, argue Anna Matheson and colleagues

How healthcare can help heal communities and the planet
The gains from healthcare are often undermined by the sector’s contributions to social inequity and environmental damage, but it doesn’t have to be that way argue Damon Francis and colleagues

Inclusive Urban Development and Investment

Strengthening the links between planning and health in England
Gemma McKinnon and colleagues argue that multidisciplinary action in planning and health will contribute to more equitable communities and improved health and wellbeing

How can urban planning contribute to building health equity?
Sharon Roerty tells us more about what can be done to make cities a more healthy place to live.

Confronting power and privilege for inclusive, equitable, and healthy communities
Ascala Sisk and colleagues set out a call to interrogate power and analyse privilege to create and sustain healthy communities.

Connected green spaces in cities pay real dividends
Nick Chapman writes about the benefits of urban green spaces.

*A third set of articles connected with the RWJF-funded program on Healthy Children, Healthy Weight is forthcoming. 

This collection is a series of articles based on discussions from Salzburg Global Seminar programs on building healthy communities. Open access fees were funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The BMJ peer reviewed, edited, and made the decision to publish the article with no involvement from the foundation.

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Confronting Power and Privilege for Inclusive, Equitable and Healthy Communities
Image: Erin White/Unsplash
Confronting Power and Privilege for Inclusive, Equitable and Healthy Communities
By: Ascala Sisk and Salzburg Global Fellows 

Salzburg Global Fellows set out a call to interrogate power and analyze privilege to create and sustain healthy communities 

This article is part of the British Medical Journal's Building Healthy Communities collection.

According to the World Health Organization, inclusive, healthy and just communities are places that continually create and improve the physical and social environment to enable all people to be mutually supportive in all functions of life and to develop their maximum potential.[1] It is suggested that only 16% of health outcomes are determined by the quality and availability of health care; and the social and economic determinants of health, including where people live play a more significant role.[2]

This goes beyond the quality of physical structures in the urban environment or the space inside a home. It is about understanding neighbourhood conditions and the availability and quality of other determinants of health, such as employment, healthy food, childcare, schools, transport and recreation space. We know geographic disparities in health, which often fall along lines of ethnicity and socioeconomic status, are growing and can exist even between people living in adjacent neighbourhoods.[3] Health professionals and urban development practitioners therefore have an important role to play to ensure the practices and processes governing the design and development of our urban environment are inclusive and equitable for all and ultimately contribute to improved population health.

A Call to Action: Interrogate Power and Analyze Privilege to Create and Sustain Healthy Communities

The scale of current and potential inequalities in the urban environment demands a revolution of purpose and accountability. The challenges we face in building and sustaining healthy and equitable communities demand new forms of thinking, problem solving, governance, and decision making. Most importantly, it requires that we learn the skills of interrogating power and analysing privilege. 

Whether resources do, or do not, flow to communities is a direct product of both individual and institutional power. Power is defined as the ability to direct laws, policies, and investment that shape people’s lives. Privilege is the accumulation of benefits of special rights. Both power and privilege have been extracted and hoarded, consciously or not, by certain groups at the expense of others based on social categorisations including, but not limited to, class, ethnicity, religion, physical ability, and gender.[4,5,6]

We call on health professionals, planners, public servants, developers, financiers, and engineers – in fact, all practitioners working at the intersection of health and the built environment – to shift their normal course of business towards adopting practices that recognise privilege and cede power. This requires pushing against conscious and unconscious practices and the societal beliefs and norms that marginalise, exclude and perpetuate inequity. We charge this community of practitioners to dismantle the structures, systems and practices that reinforce inequity. Even with best intentions, data-driven interventions, and evidence-based improvements, we will inadvertently perpetuate inequities and widen disparities if we are not conscious of our own power and the power structures within which we work.

We know that power and privilege can be complex and sometimes overwhelming concepts, but we can and must engage with them. We have proposed steps below for health professionals, policy makers and urban development practitioners and other stakeholders to begin the journey. We make this call to action to fundamentally shift the way we plan, build, program, advocate, and legislate our communities to ensure the health and quality of life for all. While it may seem a daunting task to connect this aspirational call to on-the-ground practice, we urge that this not be a reason for inaction since “professional silence in the face of social injustice is wrong.”[7]

Steps for Examining Power and Privilege in Support of Healthy and Inclusive Communities

1. Create and/or seek out “Brave Spaces” to explore the role of power in your work

Confronting power and its role in our work begins by creating “Brave Spaces”. Brave spaces are intentional environments and settings that facilitate the courageous, uncomfortable, and honest exploration of social categorizations such as physical ability, race, ethnicity, class, and gender identity and the privilege or marginalisation that is extended to individuals based on these categorizations.[8

Brave spaces are created and maintained by a transparent commitment to practices that allow difference and celebrate new forms of action and strategy. You create brave spaces when you:

  • Speak your truth and listen deeply to the truth that others speak
  • Learn the truth about historical trauma and accept its impact on yourself and those you serve
  • Understand and honour your own experience and the experiences of others in equal measure
  • Bring your vulnerability to the table and create the space for others to be vulnerable
  • Invite yourself to make mistakes and be generous with the mistakes of others 
  • Acknowledge the limits of expertise – an expert frame can shut down learning 
  • Hold yourself and others accountable to practices that affirm diversity and inclusion

2. Understand the role that power plays in your current work

Within the brave space created above, consider as an urban developer, policy maker or health professional, a program, policy initiative, or other effort that you are working on to improve the physical, social and economic conditions of communities and ask the following:

  • What is the problem I’m trying to solve?
  • What decisions, policies, and practices have historically contributed to the problem? What is the root cause of the problem?
  • What is the formal and informal, the visible and invisible, decision-making or governance structure shaping the problem?
  • What would it look like if the problem is solved?
  • Who consistently benefits from the problem not being solved?
  • Who consistently suffers from the problem not being solved?
  • Are the people most affected by this problem represented in the decision-making process?
  • In seeking data, what sources of data are considered legitimate, and by whom? Are there credible sources that are being suppressed or dismissed because the power structure has deemed them unreliable?

3. Analyze and Challenge Privilege

Privilege is the accumulation of benefits of special rights, often over time, to a certain group. Think about your work and your role in your community of practice and ask:

  • What are the areas of life in which you hold privilege?
  • Despite your work to change outcomes, what remains the same?
  • Despite changes in the wider professional or sociopolitical context, what remains the same?
  • What are the cycles, actions, and processes we repeat regardless of the outcome?
  • Does a new protocol or procedure worsen or help existing disparities?

Privilege often shows itself when the status quo is challenged. When such a challenge is presented, and conflict ensues, ask yourself:

  • Who or what is blamed for the conflict in the narrative describing the challenge?
  • Who or what is sacrificed to resolve the conflict?
  • Are there any patterns that you can observe?
  • If the problem was “resolved”, did the group or process return to the norm or status quo? 
  • Who or what restores things to what they were before the conflict?

Download the Salzburg Statement on Confronting Power and Privilege for Inclusive, Equitable and Healthy Communities as a PDF

Authors

Ascala Sisk, Deputy Director, Center for Community Investment, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; Odetta MacLeish-White, Managing Director, TransFormation Alliance; Vedette Gavin, Principle, Verge Impact Partners; Tamika Butler, Director, Equity and Inclusion and Director of CA Planning, Toole Design; Liz Ogbu, Founder + Principal, Studio O; Veronica O. Davis, P.E., Managing Partner, Nspiregreen LLC; Nupur Chaudhury, Program Officer, New York State Health Foundation, Urbanist in Residence, University of Orange; Sharon Roerty, Senior Program Officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Hanaa Hamdi, Director of Health Impact Investment Strategies and Partnerships, New Jersey Community Capital; Kelly Worden, Director, Health Research, U.S. Green Building Council; Noxolo Kabane, Deputy Director, Western Cape Department of Human Settlements; Shelly Poticha, Managing Director, Natural Resources Defense Council; and Hedzer Pathuis, Strategic Project Manager, City of Utrecht.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the all sixty-five fellows who participated in Salzburg Global Seminar program Building Healthy, Equitable Communities: The Role of Inclusive Urban Development and Investment, whose vast and varied experience helped to shape our call to action. We’d also like to thank Salzburg Global Seminar and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for creating the space to make connections and cultivate bold ideas.

References

  1. World Health Organization “Health Promotion Glossary” (2006) www.who.int/healthpromotion/about/HPR%20Gossary%201998.pdf
  2. Hood, C. M., K. P. Gennuso, G. R. Swain, and B. B. Catlin. 2016. County health rankings: Relationships between determinant factors and health outcomes. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 50(2):129-135.
  3. Woolf, Steven and Braveman, Paula. 2011. Where Health Disparities Begin: The Role of Social and Economic Determinants – and Why Current Policies May Make Matter Worse. Health Affairs, Vol. 30, No. 10: Agenda for Fighting Disparities, https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2011.0685
  4. Project Change’s “The Power of Words” Originally produced for Project Change Lessons Learned II, also included in A Community Builder’s Toolkit – both produced by Project Change and The Center for Assessment and Policy Development with some modification Racial Equity Tools.org. https://www.racialequitytools.org/glossary 
  5. McIntosh, Peggy. White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. Wellesley Centers for Women, Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity. https://www.cuesta.edu/about/documents/vpaa-docs/1_Peggy_McIntosh_White_Privilege.pdf 
  6. Hobbs, Joseph. White Privilege in Health Care: Following Recognition with Action. Ann Fam Med. 2018 May; 16(3): 197-198. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5951245/ 
  7. Berwick, Donald M., MD, MPP. Moral Choices for Today’s Physicians, JAMA. 2017; 318(21):2081-2082. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/issue/318/21 
  8. Arao, Brian, Clemens, Kristi. From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces, a new way to frame dialogue and diversity and social justice. 2013, Stylus Publishing, LLC.  https://www.gvsu.edu/cms4/asset/843249C9-B1E5-BD47-A25EDBC68363B726/from-safe-spaces-to-brave-spaces.pdf 
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“The Show Must Go On” Iranian Online Festival Created to Show the Resilience of Festivals
Sepehr Sharifzadeh speaking during Atelier for Young Festival and Cultural Managers in Shanghai.Sepehr Sharifzadeh speaking during Atelier for Young Festival and Cultural Managers in Shanghai.
“The Show Must Go On” Iranian Online Festival Created to Show the Resilience of Festivals
By: Soila Kenya 

The coronavirus lockdown did not stop Sepehr Sharifzadeh from doing what he does best: bringing people together to celebrate the arts.

For Sepehr Sharifzadeh, the shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic hit hard.

“My first passion in life is festivals; the whole fun of having festivals, gathering people, having the collective energy,” he said in an interview with Salzburg Global.

He was set to hold a festival in the historic Iranian city of Yazd, a UNESCO World Heritage Site at the beginning of March. He had been preparing for it for six months.

“We just got the permissions in February. I talked with many people to bring them to Yazd; six international groups… Two days before the festival was meant to start, they told us that due to the outbreak we cannot have the festival. We need to postpone it or cancel it,” lamented Sharifzadeh.

Sharifzadeh, whose first name means sky, is a theatre agent, producer and festival organizer. With an academic background in creative writing and puppet theater, at the age of 24, he co-founded the first Iranian international theater agency, Nowrouze Honar, the main goal of which is to facilitate the cultural exchange between Iran and the world through performances.

He was due to share his experiences at the now-postponed program What Future for Festivals? The program will now take place in October and Sharifzadeh will have yet more experience to share when he finally comes to Salzburg: how to continue a festival when you cannot physically bring people together.

He describes the devastation he felt after hearing news of the cancelation of the festival he had been organizing. After informing the performers of the cancelation, he was unable to answer emails for two days afterward.

“But then I got myself together,” he narrates. “Iranian people are very flexible and we’ve had enough of these kinds of situations to learn from. So this outbreak is only like another thing for us, you know. At least during the last year, unfortunately, we’ve had enough of death in different cities in Iran. We’ve had enough of people having troubles.”

It is this resilience in the face of adversity that got him out of his low mood to get together with two colleagues and co-create the Re-connect Online Performance Festival to be broadcast on Instagram Live. Along with Nima Dehghani, a San Francisco-based transdisciplinary artist who's the Founder and Artistic Director of Ctrl+Z Theater Group and Fariborz Karimi, Artistic Director of Theatricultural Residency and Co-founder of Bohemi Theater Group, Tehran, the three designed this festival in order to bring artists from all around the world together for solidarity against the recent pandemic panic.

“The whole concept of festivals is changing. And I was like, ‘No, this is keeping up your spirits,’ so the show must go on no matter what,” said Sharifzadeh.

For further diversity in content, his colleagues Meera Krishna from Prakriti Foundation, India, Liu Xiaoyi of Emergency Stairs, Singapore and Erica McCalman of the Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM), Australia are helping to curate shows from their regions.

They held the pilot edition of the festival March 25-30, with performances ranging from puppet theatre, acting and singing. Additionally, there were discussion panels held about a range of topics from the challenges of working on the “presence” from a distance to whether “digital theatre” can be considered as “immersive performance”. The main festival is being held April 5-12.

Panelists included Azadeh Ganjeh, playwright and theater director and assistant professor in the faculty of performing art and music at the University of Tehran, and Omid Hashemi, member of Rekhneh Collective, and pedagogical director of the Ecole International d'Acteur Createur, among others.

Sharifzadeh was able to draw performers and panelists together in this short amount of time to the point where the festival’s Instagram account has already gained over 1,800 followers.

More than just a way to bring joy to people in order to cope with the pandemic, Sharifzadeh is also greatly concerned for the mental health of the artists, and sees it as a way for them to network, and connect with one another.

Sharifzadeh says he looks forward to his time in Salzburg even more now. “I look forward to meeting people who have the same passion as me about the festivals. The program topic, ‘What Future for Festivals?’ is more relevant than ever because we came across a very specific situation in the world that we could actually divide the history into pre-corona and post-corona time,” he reveals.

In the meantime, he is dedicating his full time to the Re-connect Festival, whose page discloses their hope for the future: “Maybe if this festival was repeated in the following years, we would say to all that in February 2020, when the theaters were closed when the people were stuck at their homes when it was the Corona years, a group of artists came together through the internet and the festival started. We hope that all together, with joining forces we could take a step in the interests of society, the arts, and the human connections.”

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Salzburg Global's Cultural Innovators Expand Collaborations
Salzburg Global's Cultural Innovators Expand Collaborations
By: Salzburg Global Seminar 

Travel award scheme enables Salzburg Global Fellows to reaffirm existing connections and share new learnings

Salzburg Global Seminar has received financial support from the Kresge Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, and Bush Foundation to offer travel awards to 20 Fellows for 16 projects.

Selected Fellows from the Cultural Innovators Forum have been backed to undertake new collaborative projects in 2020. The Fellows won travel awards after an internal call for applications, which received 22 submissions.

The awards will enable Fellows to travel to countries including France, Kenya, Malta, the Republic of Korea, South Africa, Spain, and the United States. In these countries, beneficiaries will connect with other Fellows of the Forum.

New Experiences

For several Fellows, this will be their first experience in a new continent. This includes Gabrielle Garcia Steib, Muna Mohamed, and Korina Barry, who will visit Asia for the first time. Traveling from the Upper Midwest in the United States, the trio will spend time with Ji Young Lee, deputy chief executive of Hwansang Forest Gotjawal Park.

The trio will visit Ji Young Lee’s village and surrounding communities on Jeju Island in the Republic of Korea. They’ll then host three workshops highlighting the importance of connection and physical movement in natural spaces. The trio will primarily work with women and girls in the community who lack opportunities to travel.

From Greece to the United States

Dafni Kalafati will also hold a workshop as part of her travel award. She will partner with Holly Doll to further explore Native American issues. She will travel from Athens, Greece, to Bismarck, North Dakota, to hold a week-long art therapy-based workshop for female artists. The Buffalo Fire Woman Project will see participants work with different techniques and materials to create a booklet of personal and tribal stories. The workshop will create awareness about native issues in the U.S. and Greece, as well as foster self-worth and self-esteem.

Lazaros Damanis, also from Athens, Greece, will travel to Detroit, Michigan, to work with Sacramento Knoxx, also known as Christoper Yepez. They’ll aim to showcase career opportunities through formal and non-formal learning within the frame of the music industry – including music creation, event managing, and digital communications. Small events are being planned, including workshops, live studio podcasts, street events, and open discussions. His goal is to preserve the cultural heritage of Detroit using music as the main vehicle of cultural exchange.

Sharing of Best Practices in South Africa

Meanwhile, Alissa Shelton and Julien Godman will swap Detroit, Michigan, for Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa. It will be Shelton’s first trip to Africa and Godman’s first trip to South Africa. Both want to host two exchange events for local YCIs and others. Attendees will cook together while sharing their works and practices. Considering Detroit’s history of redlining and current property systems disintegrating black neighborhoods, Shelton and Godman are also interested in learning more about Palesa and Siphiwe Ngweny’s work with the Maboneng Township Arts Experience and from South Africa as a whole, especially in regards to spatial and zoning practices that amplify segregation.

As part of a separate proposal, Palesa and Siphiwe will also be visited by Charly Pierre. Traveling from New Orleans, LA, Pierre will hope to create a new recipe for success. Two of his Culture Forums will take place in a slightly different format where attendees will communally create a meal while discussing their cultural taboos. At the end of the meal, each attendee will leave with a recipe card featuring someone else’s reflections.

Promoting Cross-Cultural Exchange

Pierre is one of several Fellows from the sixth program of the Forum to receive a scholarship. Another is Chino Carlo Aricaya, who will travel from the Philippines to the United States. In Minneapolis, Detroit, and Baltimore, Aricaya will bring his show “Artempus” and offer workshops to help connect people to their inner artist. The show was designed as an education vehicle for cross-cultural exchange about the ideas of time, space, and the spoken word. Aricaya will connect with Julien Godman, Joy Davis, and Carl Atiya Swanson.

Swanson, from Minneapolis, has also received a travel award to help Maria Galea launch a new network in Valetta, Malta. Artz ID will be a network for contemporary visual artists, organizations, galleries, and large institutions. Swanson will offer his expertise, as well as toolkits and resources created in Minnesota. The duo is planning a series of workshops that will encompass practical business skills for artists, workshops on network-building and collaboration, and opportunities to explore concrete projects.

Joining Swanson in Europe is Steven Fox from New York City, who has the opportunity to learn more about the old worlds of France and Spain. His eight-day trip will build on his previous work looking at the historical and cultural connection of the French and Spanish cultures with regards to Memphis and New Orleans. He aims to share experiential research and analysis of French and Spanish explorers and American-related conquests. He’ll write a book of poetry and will provide updates on social media.

New Opportunities for Co-Creation

Poetry is just one medium to share a message. Mariano Pozzi will shoot an artistic film in the United States for the first time. Working alongside Dina Mousa, he will create a 15-minute fictional film titled “Two Lands,” which will focus on native communities in both Argentina and the United States. One story will represent an Ojibwa character in St Paul, Minnesota, while another story will represent a Querandi character in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Both characters will discover the modernity of their cities and try to connect with their ancestors and cultural backgrounds.

Ralph Eya, from Manila, the Philippines, will also travel to Minnesota but to work alongside Adrienne M. Benjamin and the next generation leaders of Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe on a series of public murals. A facilitated workshop will accompany this. Through a process of co-creation, there will be art modules such as interactive portrait making and body mapping. Eya will also host a discussion with members of the Minnesota Hub about creative change-making frameworks and processes.

Also making the trip from the Philippines to the United States is Andrei Nikolai Pamintuan. He’ll travel to Memphis, Tennessee, to meet up with Lauren Kennedy. He’ll learn more about the UrbanArt Commission and how to use art as a tool for positive change in spaces, neighborhoods, and creative placemaking. He hopes to plant the seeds for a sister program that his organization – Pineapple Lab – and the UrbanArt Commission can collaborate on.

Memphis is also home to Orange Mound, the first African-American neighborhood in the history of America to be built by and for African Americans. Lucas Koski, from Minnesota, will visit the neighborhood to collaborate with Victoria Jones on how to use real estate strategies to generate wealth and equity, rather than extract it. He wants to understand how to be a better consultant and an expert in communities he is a foreigner to, particularly in relation to his role as an arts-based real estate developer for Artspace Projects. He will take part in multiple tours and discussions, hold a design charrette, and synthesize his learnings for a report.

Building Networks

Jones will also receive support for a separate travel award. She’ll travel to New Orleans, LA, to work with Sam Bowler, Nic Aziz, and David Baker. Jones wants to build infrastructure to support Black artists in Memphis. She will learn about Culturalyst from Bowler, the connectedness of galleries from Aziz, and how storytelling can transform these experiences from Baker. Rather than recreate the wheel, Jones wants to introduce existing technology to help push the conversation forward and improve connections in Memphis.

Bowler, meanwhile, is introducing Culturalyst to Makueni County, Kenya. With his travel award, he’ll set up an online artist directory for the county, which will be supported by a dedicated server, database, and frontend application. Upon arriving in Kenya, Bowler will meet with Esther Mbatha and plan events centered around educating artists about the directory and signing them up to be listed. He will be on hand to receive feedback from artists and make improvements to the Culturalyst network.

Traveling from Baltimore, Quinton Batts will visit Sioux Falls and Minneapolis to share his work and create further opportunities for growth. In Sioux Falls, he will meet with Zach DeBoer and assist him in painting a community mural. A day later, he’ll give a presentation about his social design research and projects at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) about human-centered design, pedestrian and bike-friendly cities, and urban farming to the local chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA). He’ll then proceed to attend an Upper Midwest meet-up.


The Cultural Innovators Forum empowers rising talents in the creative sector to drive social, economic and urban change. Launched in 2014, it is building a global network of 500 competitively-selected changemakers in “hub” communities who design collaborative projects, build skills, gain mentors, and connect to upcoming innovators in their cities and countries.

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Educators and Champions from Around the Globe Gather for the World's Largest Free Online SEL Conference
Educators and Champions from Around the Globe Gather for the World's Largest Free Online SEL Conference
By: Soila Kenya 

For this year’s International Day of Happiness, Karanga – a Salzburg Global Fellow-led initiative – holds a virtual convening on social and emotional learning.

On March 20, the International Day of Happiness, Salzburg Global teamed up with Karanga: The Global Alliance for Social Emotional Learning and Life Skills to hold a free online gathering of champions of social and emotional learning.

The event was held as a way for practitioners to learn from leaders in the field and connect with an international community committed to the support of children’s social-emotional well-being.

Social and emotional learning or SEL as it is commonly known can be defined as “the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.”

Karanga, a global alliance that emerged from the Salzburg Global program series, Education for Tomorrow’s World, advances the awareness, knowledge and understanding of skills for learning and life and it bridges the perceived divide between academic knowledge and social emotional skills.

Mark Sparvell, Education Leader at Microsoft, founder of SELinEDU and Fellow of Salzburg Global Seminar thinks that SEL should be at the core of education. “Social and Emotional Skills are fundamental and no-longer ornamental aspects of high quality education and have incredibly long reaching impact on well-being of individuals and more broadly, societies and economies,” he told Salzburg Global.

Over the course of the day, two three-hour sessions were held in order to cover all time zones with a public assembly about mainstreaming SEL in between.

The line-up of speakers included people from across different sectors; government officials, professors, people from the private sector and people from the NGO world, representing a large swath of perspectives. Keynote speakers included Shailendra Sharma who spoke about the Happiness Curriculum in Delhi; Marcela Almeida who spoke about the implementation of SEL in Brazil; Margot Foster who spoke about developing expert learners and learner agency in South Australia; and Jordan Posamentier who spoke about advocacy strategies.

Further discussions also comprised of new tools to support SEL and a community conversation about where the field of SEL is heading.

“We need more opportunities to share what works in SEL across different education systems,” said Dominic Regester, Salzburg Global Program Director and Karanga Executive Committee Member when asked about the key takeaways from the online conference. He added, “There are amazing examples of policy, research and practice from around the world and social and emotional skills and competencies underpin essential behaviors that will shape the success of our response to COVID-19.”

With a turnout of almost 400 people across both sessions, there was feedback from participants that similar sessions are needed within the community. 

The conference was made possible with further help from Committee for Children, Compassion Games, SELinEDU and the Synergized Impact Network Exchange (SINE).
Sparvell, who also spoke during the conference said that partnership will be the driving force of achieving the goals of SEL moving forward. “Our partnership with Salzburg Global Seminar indicates a shared commitment to empower every learner on the planet to expect more, do more and be more,” he said.

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Salzburg Global to Restore Red Salon at Schloss Leopoldskron
From left to right - Trevor Traina, United States Ambassador to Austria, Helga Rabl-Stadler, President of the Salzburg Festival, and Stephen L. Salyer, President of Salzburg Global SeminarFrom left to right - Trevor Traina, United States Ambassador to Austria, Helga Rabl-Stadler, President of the Salzburg Festival, and Stephen L. Salyer, President of Salzburg Global Seminar
Salzburg Global to Restore Red Salon at Schloss Leopoldskron
By: Salzburg Global Seminar 

Meeting space will be renovated to its Reinhardt-era splendor and provide the conditions for forward-thinking to flourish

Salzburg Global Seminar is proud to announce a new partnership that will lead to the restoration of Schloss Leopoldskron’s Red Salon.

The first-floor meeting space, also known as the McGowan Room, will be renovated to mark the centenary of the Salzburg Festival, to honor Max Reinhardt’s legacy of peace and cultural exchange, and to inspire ideas for the next 100 years.

The renovation is being supported by Trevor Traina, United States Ambassador to Austria, and led by renowned designer Ken Fulk. Work will begin this month and is expected to be completed in July. The newly-designed room will be presented as part of the anniversary celebrations at the beginning of this year’s Salzburg Festival.

When Reinhardt purchased the Schloss in 1918, he saw Leopoldskron’s potential as a place for reflection, restoration, and renewal after a devastating global conflict. He reimagined the building’s interiors and regularly gathered together innovative artists, playwrights, and cultural icons of the day.

It was here in Schloss Leopoldskron – including the Red Salon – where major projects were conceived that would substantially shape the direction and program of the Festival in years to come. Today, the Red Salon remains a unique meeting space where current and future leaders from different sectors create partnerships and formulate ideas to help shape a better world.

Last month, Ambassador Traina joined Stephen L. Salyer, President of Salzburg Global Seminar, and Helga Rabl-Stadler, President of the Salzburg Festival, in the Red Salon to announce the renovation plans.

Fulk, named “the design world’s impresario” by Architectural Digest, will seek to create a space that remembers its Reinhardt-era origins while bringing inspiration and sophistication. Fulk previously decorated the American Ambassador’s residence in Vienna to much acclaim.

Ambassador Traina said, “My family has a deep relationship with Austria. My grandfather was an ambassador to Austria, and I spent a lot of time in Vienna as a boy. Preserving such a place steeped in history and Max Reinhardt’s legacy is not just a social obligation: that is a personal concern and need for me.”

Gifts in support of the Red Salon renovation project will be recognized as part of the Inspiring LeadershipCampaign – Salzburg Global’s largest-ever fundraising campaign. Intending to raise $18m, the campaign has already received $12.3m in commitments.

Salyer said, “The renovation of the Red Salon, which is so important for the history of Salzburg, would have been much more difficult to do without the generous donation from Trevor Traina. We are extremely grateful for this and are extremely looking forward to implementing this dream project together with the American Ambassador.”

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Nothing About Us Without Us
Members of the Youth Forum at the Zero Project Conference in Vienna, Austria
Nothing About Us Without Us
By: Faye Hobson 

Reflections on the Zero Project Conference Youth Forum
 
Article 26 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights states that everyone has the right to education, but for some people accessing this education is far harder than it should be. For young people with disabilities, experiences of marginalization are all too commonplace in educational settings and many young people face total exclusion from the education sector. 

The Zero Project Conference brings together individuals and organizations working together with the common goal of creating a world without barriers for people with disabilities. This year the topic was inclusive education. Salzburg Global was invited to share our work on social and emotional learning, and how this can be an effective tool for building more empathetic and inclusive education systems. 

On several occasions during the conference, “nothing about us without us” was the rousing call from many of the speakers. The Zero Project lived their values and invited 12 Youth Advocates from around the world to the conference to discuss their experiences of inclusive education. 

These young people were not included in a tokenistic way, as is so often the case when we try to “include” members of “marginalized” groups. They were empowered to tell their own stories, to raise their voices, and to call for the change that they want to see on the issues that directly affect them. 

Fierce, funny, powerful, and not afraid of calling for radical change in a way that many adults would not feel they could. One of the Youth Advocates said that, if given the opportunity, he would punch his education system in the face and rebuild it more inclusively and democratically. You can’t argue with that!

Many adults will have memories of their time at school being entirely shaped by rules, schedules, and teachers. The inclusive schools presented at the Youth Forum, all share a common belief that the best needs of learners are served by enabling students, teachers and parents to work together. It was clear to see and hear the positive results of this approach as 12 confident and charismatic young people took to the stage at the conference. 

Reflecting on the global scale of the challenges faced by disabled people, one Youth Advocate reminded us that prejudices don’t need a passport to cross borders and called for us all to join in the global fight for complex diversity that gives everyone the freedom to be who they are. 

The Youth Advocates reminded the audience that discrimination against people with disabilities happens so often we almost think that it is normal. Most of us either are or will eventually become disabled. So, it would seem a sensible, inclusive, future-proofing step to build a more inclusive world sooner rather than later.

Achieving inclusion for people with disabilities requires everyone in society to play a part in creating change. By celebrating difference and creating societies where everyone is valued and free to be themselves, we can build a happier and healthier world.

Salzburg Global staff, Faye Hobson, Program Manager, and Dominic Regester, Program Director, were Co-Chairs of the Youth Forum at the Zero Project Conference. The Zero Project, an initiative of the Essl Foundation, focuses on the rights of persons with disabilities globally. It provides a platform where the most innovative and effective solutions to problems that persons with disabilities face, are shared. Its sole objective is to assist in creating a world without barriers. 

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Don’t Be Scared, Get Prepared
In the forefront, Sars-Cov2 written in black ink on a perspex screen. In the background, a person wearing forensic clothing.Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Don’t Be Scared, Get Prepared
By: Oscar Tollast 

As the world faces another possible pandemic, experts ask how can we find outbreaks faster?

On the eve of 2020, a new strain of coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 was reported from Wuhan, China. By the end of February, the number of confirmed cases of infection, called COVID-19, surpassed 80,000, the infection spread to 30 other countries, and the outbreak was declared a global health emergency. Within two months, COVID-19 had claimed nearly 3,000 lives, with many more at risk.

Mark Smolinski envisions a world without pandemics, a world with faster detection of outbreaks and fewer fatalities. He says, “This really is a wake-up call and outbreaks such as this that spread from animals to humans will continue to occur. My motto is, ‘Don’t be scared, get prepared.’”

For the past 25 years, Smolinski has worked to improve disease prevention and control across the globe. As president of Ending Pandemics, Mark and his team work to improve infectious disease surveillance. In short, they help countries find outbreaks faster.

Like the age old adage, “What gets measured, gets done,” Ending Pandemics developed a framework for measuring timeliness of outbreak detection and response, along with a set of other key milestones.

Ending Pandemics piloted such timeliness metrics in 28 countries to test the feasibility of measurement. Ending Pandemics then hosted a sector-spanning, international program with Salzburg Global Seminar in 2018, to refine these metrics and identify mechanisms to aid their widespread implementation.

Smolinski says, “Much to our surprise, this diverse group of people representing many sectors and countries came to agreement on standard milestone definitions.” The World Health Organization and other agencies have since adopted the timeliness metrics for measuring the impact of an outbreak on human health.

But pandemics affect more than just people. Often diseases start in animals and transfer to humans, and the health of animals and humans both impact the health of the environment – and vice versa. Greater recognition of this relationship led to the call for “One Health” timeliness metrics.

Expanding on their earlier work on human outbreak timelines metrics, Ending Pandemics led a diverse group of experts that spanned the One Health spectrum at a second program with Salzburg Global in 2019. The consensus between the experts gathered was again expeditious as they drafted a set of One Health timeliness metrics. Smolinski credits the Salzburg program for the speedy breakthrough. “To be able to come away with completely satisfactory results in the end really speaks to the process and the preparation that goes into [the program],” he says.

This more complete set of timeliness metrics are still designed around “milestones”: the dates when an outbreak is predicted, detected, verified and responded to, when the authorities are notified, and when a multisectoral investigation is launched, lab tests conducted, control measures implemented and the public informed.

Smolinski says, “The metrics are a set of indicators against which we can measure progress. We have build them into how we monitor our work. We’re helping countries figure out how to build them into their automated disease surveillance systems for continuous improvement.

“We hope that these simple set of metrics, in the end, will allow countries to regularly calculate them as performance measures. They’re so common sense. The reality that they’re not systematically collected is a challenge we can easily overcome.”

Ending Pandemics continues to provide scientific, technical, and financial support to find outbreaks faster in emerging disease hotspots. The spread of COVID-19 has shown the world is still not ready to prevent pandemics, according to Smolinski, as still plenty of challenges remain.

“What motivates me is the fact that the challenges continue to exist, that the opportunities with new technology, data sharing, and artificial intelligence are just so exciting that I’m convinced we can find outbreaks faster and contain them at their source.”

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Making the World Better and Beautiful Through Collaboration
Jaimie (Joo Im) MoonJaimie (Joo Im) Moon
Making the World Better and Beautiful Through Collaboration
By: Oscar Tollast 

Salzburg Global Fellow Jaimie (Joo Im) Moon discusses the impact of attending the YCI Forum and arts and culture in the Republic of Korea

For Jaimie (Joo Im) Moon, her experience in Salzburg was “inspiring” for many reasons – none more so than her realizing “how so many great and creative people are out there making our world better and beautiful…” Her participation in the Young Cultural Innovators Forum (YCI) also helped her make connections that would have otherwise been difficult to make.

“It was also very meaningful for me to get to talk with global fellows from the regions that are comparatively rare to meet in East Asia, such as those from Eastern Europe and South America. The thoughtfully curated programs of YCI led us to become friends and to exchange thoughts and experiences in fun and mindful way[s].”

Moon, from the Republic of Korea, arrived in Salzburg in October 2016 as a senior researcher and cultural designer for the Bureau of Strategic Planning of the World Culture Open, a non-profit organization that promotes cultural diversity and unprejudiced cultural exchange around the globe. Now, she is the executive director of the Bureau that stands in its place: The Bureau of Research & Plan. Moon has since grown more confident about her life goal.

She said, “I think I was able to be clearer about my goal through YCI and recent years of work because I feel that there are more allies, the comrades, and friends to learn from and to exchange knowledge and experiences with for the common goal. Such [a] feeling of solidarity brings up confidence and willpower in me.”

Better Together

At World Culture Open, Moon is working on the organization’s Better Together Initiative, which tries to bring together social entrepreneurs from around the world who are working for the greater good. Moon said, “World Culture Open shares a very similar goal of what Salzburg Global Seminar has been achieving over 70 years - convening creative minds across sectors, fostering networks and partnership for social change, [and] connecting local innovators across the globe.”

One of the two pillars of this initiative is the Better Together Festival (Challenge), an annual three-day global gathering of change-makers where participants can share stories of their projects and win prizes through a contest-format program. They can also exchange knowledge, attend talks and concerts, have in-depth group discussions on social issues, and discuss potential partnerships.

Last year’s festival was held in Pyeongchang and featured hundreds of practitioners from around the world, including several YCI Fellows. Susanna Seidl-Fox, a program director at Salzburg Global responsible for culture and the arts, was also in attendance. Moon said, “Along with the Challenge, we were happy to be able to invite some YCI Fellows as advisory members to the Better Together initiative this year. Advisory members… are those recognized as proactive agents of change in their own communities who actively engage in shaping and implementing Better Together initiative with a collaborative network of practitioners and change-makers.”

Collaborative Partnerships

Moon said she had benefited personally and professionally from knowing Seidl-Fox. “She has been a great mentor for me in the aspect of leadership, management, and communication… I believe such professionalism that Susi shows throughout the process of work is also a very important learning element for young cultural innovators.”

The YCI Forum is building a global network of 500 change-makers in hub communities to design collaborative projects, build skills, provide mentorship, and connector innovators in different cities and countries. Moon has collaborated with Salzburg Global Fellows, including Phloen Prim, Siphiwe Mbinda, Rebecca Chan, Yu Nakamura, Sebastian Chuffer, Chunnoon Song-e Song, and more. Moon said, “The YCI network, a pool of hundreds of creative minds is an incredible source of greater-good practitioners [whom] I can invite, connect [with] and introduce [to] the field of work that I am involved in.

“For the projects that I curated in Korea, I could invite YCI Fellows as global speakers, facilitators and expert/advisory members, or connect the Fellows to other cultural projects and collaborative opportunities in Korea.”

Arts and Culture in the Republic of Korea

In the Republic of Korea, Moon said there are a “good amount” of grants and government-backed cultural foundations that support the arts. World Culture Open, for example, works closely with the public sector at various levels. Moon said, “We partner with the Presidential Committee for the National Balanced Development for a project to find and support the cultural innovators in local areas… They are the core element in terms of [the] sustainable development of the region. Such collaborative effort[s] [are] important, especially when the disparity between cosmopolitan urban [cities] like Seoul and the other regions is generating many social problems.

“The Better Together Global Festival has [also] been hosted and funded by the city-level regional governments each year. And we often get invited by the government bureaus for consultancy to various arts and culture-related matters in the regions.”

Despite this financial support, Moon believes the arts and culture sector in Korea is still considered a secondary subject when compared with technology, the economy, or politics. “We need to acknowledge cultural innovators – those who practice and promote arts and culture – are also the social innovators. Cultural innovators approach social issue[s] with [flexibility] and creative perspective[s] and find breakthroughs from unconventional approaches. Arts and culture brings advancement to technology, [the] economy, and even politics with creativity.”

If Moon could change one thing about the arts and culture sector in her country, it would be the arts education system. She believes arts and culture need to be taught as a natural means of expression and creativity. “Arts and culture should be appreciated and valued more importantly in terms of class time and resource allocation at schools, and it should be applied cross-sectoral throughout various subjects. Teachers need more learning resources and practical training. It is never enough. Governments and corporations need to invest more in arts education.”


The Salzburg Global Forum for Young Cultural Innovators empowers rising talents in the creative sector to drive social, economic and urban change. Launched in 2014, it is building a global network of 500 competitively-selected changemakers in “hub” communities who design collaborative projects, build skills, gain mentors, and connect to upcoming innovators in their cities and countries.

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Salzburg Global Fellows Discuss Artificial Intelligence and More at Pune International Literary Festival
From left to right - Parag Mankeekar, Stacy Baird, Seda Röder, and Charles Ehrlich at the Pune International Literary FestivalFrom left to right - Parag Mankeekar, Stacy Baird, Seda Röder, and Charles Ehrlich at the Pune International Literary Festival
Salzburg Global Fellows Discuss Artificial Intelligence and More at Pune International Literary Festival
By: Claire Kidwell and Oscar Tollast 

Salzburg Global partners with Indian literary festival and holds panel discussion on artificial intelligence and societal innovation

Salzburg Global Seminar cast an eye on the future at this year’s Pune International Literary Festival (PILF) as it partnered with the festival for the fourth consecutive year.

Each year, as part of the partnership, a Salzburg Global Seminar staff member convenes a select group of Fellows in Pune, for a main-stage panel discussion on a topic of global concern, as well as to participate in discussions on other issues within their expertise, and to provide mentoring and guidance to young authors participating in the festival. 

From 20-22 September, Charles Ehrlich, a program director at Salzburg Global, joined Fellows Stacy Baird, Seda Röder, and Parag Mankeekar in Pune, India. They took part in Salzburg Global’s main panel discussion on artificial intelligence (AI) and societal innovation. 

During this period, they also engaged in discussions on issues ranging from climate change to creativity in a digital age. The quartet have all participated in multiple programs at Schloss Leopoldskron spanning many of Salzburg Global Seminar’s key program areas across governance, justice, culture, health, and education, and could bring this diversity of knowledge and experience to Pune.

The Pune International Literary Festival is Pune’s first-ever English literary festival and provides a space for young authors to gain insight into the writing process, listen to personal stories from acclaimed authors, and attend panels on international topics to add relevance to their work.

The festival was established by author and Salzburg Global Fellow Manjiri Prabhu, who first came to Schloss Leopoldskron in 2002 for the program From Page to Screen: Adapting Literature to Film.

Inspired by her time in Salzburg, Prabhu wanted to create a forum where people who would not otherwise meet come and collaborate on international issues.

Prabhu said the festival was “extremely privileged” to have Salzburg Global return as an international partner. She said, “With every passing year, the bond has strengthened to serve a common objective, that of spreading knowledge to attain global peace. I hope that together we will bridge the gap between thoughts and action and bring about a change in the world through literature, arts, and culture.”

Seda Röder, a classical pianist and co-founder of Sonophilia, a global thinktank for creative leadership and cross-industry collaboration, was visiting India for the first time. In her work, she wants to help empower humans to become creative problem-solvers to tackle global challenges. Reflecting on the panel discussion she took part in, Röder said, “I had a feeling that some people were really afraid of how much technology should be actually accepted, how much AI should be in the room, [and] how much of the decision making it should take over. It’s an essential question to so many people.”

In the panel discussion, Fellows also discussed the visibility of data, the ethics surrounding it, and what checks could be put in place to protect people. Röder said there was agreement among panelists that societies have reached a point where there is no going back.

“I can’t imagine a future where all this improvement and innovation, and all the good and bad technology that goes with that - we won’t be able to take anything back,” Röder said. “You can’t tell people not to use social media or anything like that, I think that makes no sense. So we’ll have to figure out a way of steering the ship hopefully without making it sink.”

Parag Mankeekar, a health professional and anthropologist turned social-tech entrepreneur, found the experience of talking about AI at a literary festival a novel experience. He said, “The world constantly changes, and writers have a great role to play to bring this changing world reality to the thought process of the common man in a language that's easy to understand.”

During the panel discussion, Mankeekar sought to demonstrate how AI can help solve the world’s most challenging problems. He said, “The challenge is how common man can deal with the issues of data privacy and ‘illusions’ AI sets through its anti-social algorithms can be brought to the knowledge of common man… This is where I must appreciate the efforts of Salzburg [Global] Seminar and PILF to bring such an important topic as one of the main themes of the festival and sensitizing the society to be ready for the better future.”

Taking part in his first literary festival, law and technology expert Stacy Baird, consulting director at TRPC, said it was an honor to be involved and experience the festival’s creative energy. 

“It was a delight to be able to share insights on our topics, climate, and the environment and artificial intelligence, with an interesting and interested cross-cultural group of creative writers,” said Baird. “It was also wonderful to have the opportunity to meet a number of people from outside my usual sphere of association. I expect I have made several life-long friends.”

Additional Salzburg Global Fellows speaking at the festival included former UN undersecretary-general and acclaimed author Shashi Tharoor, who discussed his own life journey as well as his most recent book Why I am a Hindu

Salzburg Global program director Charles Ehrlich said he admired the “relaxed intergenerational atmosphere” created at the festival, which enabled participants and speakers to mix and talk freely, creating a synergy with Salzburg Global’s ethos. 

Ehrlich added, “It was also terrific to engage across multiple sectors in India’s second-largest literary festival – and we are very pleased Salzburg Global Seminar was able to bring Fellows to the Festival who themselves crossed so many disciplines. The Festival itself sought out this diversity, and it is precisely these interconnections that underline why Salzburg Global Seminar and the Pune International Literary Festival make good partners.”

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Salzburg Global and Ending Pandemics Create One Health Timeliness Metrics
Participants of Finding Outbreaks Faster: Metrics for One Health SurveillanceParticipants of Finding Outbreaks Faster: Metrics for One Health Surveillance
Salzburg Global and Ending Pandemics Create One Health Timeliness Metrics
By: Salzburg Global Seminar and Ending Pandemics 

Development of One Health timeliness metrics occurs ahead of fourth annual One Health Day

Coinciding with the fourth annual One Health Day, participants of Salzburg Global Seminar and Ending Pandemics’ latest program have designed the first-ever set of One Health timeliness metrics and prototyped a framework for implementation.

Specialists in environmental, livestock, wildlife, and human health from across the globe spent the past few days at Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria as active participants in the program Finding Outbreaks Faster: Metrics for One Health Surveillance.

In November 2018, Salzburg Global Seminar and Ending Pandemics ran a program that produced a set of metrics for measuring progress in finding and responding to human health outbreaks faster.

These metrics have now been adopted by the World Health Organization and other agencies. The participants in this year’s program broke new ground in expanding the application of this approach to One Health.

One Health is a collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach that recognizes the health of people, animals, and the environment are connected. The timeliness metrics will enable One Health stakeholders to measure their performance in finding outbreaks faster to save lives and protect livelihoods.

On November 3 each year, One Health Day is marked across the world. It is a campaign that brings attention to the need for a One Health approach to address shared health threats at the human-animal-environment interface.

During this year’s program, participants engaged with panel discussions, presentations, and group work to design One Health metrics. Initial discussions centered on operationalizing One Health surveillance and identifying metrics for human, animal, and environmental health.

A few examples of timeliness metrics developed through a highly interactive, iterative process include time to detect an unusual or adverse health event, time to initiation of a multisectoral investigation, and time to implementation of control measures. 

Moving forward, Ending Pandemics will process the many ideas generated at the program and produce a One Health framework to be openly shared and promoted globally. Participants mapped out an action plan through 2021 and offered commitments to push this plan forward.

For more information about One Health Day, please visit https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/one-health-day.html

For a summary of the program, download our 12-page newsletter, featuring illustrations, interviews, and insights.

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Preserving Our Past with a Look to the Future
Salzburg Global Seminar and Harvard University Library LogosSalzburg Global Seminar has partnered with Harvard University Archives to permanently house and make available for research its historical records
Preserving Our Past with a Look to the Future
By: Salzburg Global Seminar 

Salzburg Global Seminar shares historical records with Harvard University Archives

We are delighted to announce Salzburg Global Seminar has partnered with Harvard University Archives to permanently house and make available for research our historical records, fulfilling a wish by Salzburg Global's "fourth founder" Herbert P. Gleason. Our hope is this collection will engage researchers and  students interested in global intellectual and cultural history. We encourage you to learn more about Salzburg Global's connection with Harvard University below.

In 2009, Salzburg Global Seminar’s “fourth founder” Herbert P. Gleason put forward a proposal. He advocated for the organization to share its history with the Harvard University Archives, the oldest and largest academic archives in the United States, and thus the wider world. It was a chance for Salzburg Global to reconnect with the establishment its three founders hailed from and an opportunity to reaffirm the extraordinary relationship between both organizations.

Salzburg Global makes no secret of its connection with the Ivy League university. As mentioned, the organization was the brainchild of three Harvard men – graduate student Clemens Heller, college senior Richard “Dick” Campbell and English instructor Scott Elledge. In the summer of 1947, the trio had the vision to rebuild Europe by pursuing a “Marshall Plan for the Mind.”

The first program, known as the Salzburg Seminar in American Civilization, was a triumphant success. Faculty mostly came from Harvard University, including literary historian F.O. Matthiessen, Nobel Prize-winning economist Wassily Leontief, government professor Benjamin F. Wright and acclaimed historian Gaetano Salvemini. While the Harvard administration was less enthusiastic about the initiative, the Harvard Student Council provided part of the funding.

Gleason, also a Harvard alumnus, was selected alongside five other Harvard students through a university-wide competition to administer the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies summer program of 1949. He became the clerk of the Seminar after his graduation in 1950. He was a signatory of the original incorporation papers and remained a member of the board of directors until 2010. It’s perhaps no surprise to learn a young Gleason put forward another proposal at the time to expand the organization’s program of studies and think more globally.

Salzburg Global Seminar hasn’t looked back since and continues to flourish. Since 1947, the organization has welcomed more than 37,000 Fellows from more than 170 countries. Today, Salzburg Global challenges current and future leaders to shape a better world. Its multi-year series of programs aim to bridge divides, expand collaboration and transform systems.

Following Gleason’s call for action, which gained the enthusiastic support of Salzburg Global Seminar’s President and Board leadership, work began on cataloging and archiving past program materials including reports, lecture outlines, directories, and schedules. It was the start of a lengthy procedure, which was undertaken by various members of staff and interns. What followed was a significant learning process for the organization.

Sadly, Gleason was unable to see his initiative reach a successful conclusion. He passed away on December 9, 2013, at the age of 85 following treatment for cancer. Staff at Salzburg Global continued, however, to push ahead with Gleason’s wish and ensure another part of his legacy lived on.

By December 2017, an estimated 350 linear feet of textual records was ready to be shipped to the Harvard University Archives. After traveling by boat, the boxes arrived at the Archives the following month. Since being delivered, the records have been accessioned. The records will be shortly made available for researchers and the wider public, which will bring Salzburg Global further into the world.

Since its establishment in 1947, Salzburg Global has welcomed hundreds of participants who have held a connection with Harvard University. In recent years, Harvard Law School has been one of 11 schools to partner with the Salzburg Cutler Fellows Program. Now in its seventh year, the program convenes up to 55 students nominated by their law schools along with faculty and noted practitioners of international public and private law. Together they take part in a highly interactive exploration of leading-edge issues in international law, national security, international courts, the rule of law, and international finance, monetary and trade law.

In addition, some of Salzburg Global’s current staff and former interns have studied at the illustrious university. Stephen Salyer, president, and chief executive officer at Salzburg Global, has a Master’s in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Meanwhile, Charles E. Ehrlich, a program director at Salzburg Global, holds an A.B. in history and classics (Latin). His father also studied at Harvard at the same time as Heller, Campbell Jnr., and Elledge.

Julia Bunte-Mein served as a program intern in the summer of 2018. Bunte-Mein, who is pursuing a Bachelor’s degree at Harvard studying social anthropology and environmental studies said, “On the recommendation from an advisor from Harvard’s German Department, I looked into Salzburg Global and was very inspired by its programs bringing together diverse opinions to discuss today’s most pressing global policy issues. Now knowing the history of Salzburg Global’s founding by three Harvard students, who sought to overcome political divides through discussions of literature and humanities, it is not surprising to me that they came from Harvard…

“I find one of the principal benefits from my experience [at Harvard] has been engaging in complex, often controversial topics with students coming from vastly different geographic, religious, and political backgrounds around the world… The open-mindedness and emphasis on creating spaces to broach sensitive or multifaceted subjects pervade the campus culture. This prepared me well for working at the Salzburg Global Seminar.”

Fiona Davis graduated from Harvard with a Bachelor’s degree in government, a minor in history, and a language citation in French. She interned at Salzburg Global the quarter after Bunte-Mein. She worked primarily as a development intern but also assisted on programs. She said, “It is a testament to the perennial legacy of Harvard's history of service, the ingenuity of Salzburg Global's founders, and the stewardship of Salzburg Global's leaders over time that the organization has retained its character and staying power as a now globally focused organization for cross border cooperation.

“Moving Salzburg Global's archives to Harvard essentially brings this process full circle. What began at Harvard became a global service organization, and now Salzburg Global's legacy will be permanently remembered and made a part of Harvard's own physical records again. Salzburg Global can become a part of the fabric of Harvard's legacy of service that will influence the next generation's leaders and thinkers to embrace and practice the same values.”

Reflecting on this feat and fulfilling Gleason’s wish, Stephen Salyer, president, and chief executive officer of Salzburg Global said: “Our cooperation with the Harvard University Archives makes permanent a connection between Harvard students with a dream and leading scholars who helped make that dream reality.  The early years left an indelible mark on all we do, and the Seminar’s spirit of public service now extends to fellows, scholars and partner institutions in every corner of the world. We are deeply thankful for the University’s shared vision, and tangible support.”


Access to the collection will be limited in some cases until it is processed and there are restrictions in place, yet the Harvard University Archives and Salzburg Global are both eager to invite researchers into these records and anticipate that permission for research will be granted in many cases. During this initial phase, if you are interested in learning more about the collection or requesting permission to access, you can contact Virginia Hunt, Associate University Archivist for Collection Development and Records Management Services, at virginia_hunt@harvard.edu or 617-495-3240.

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Moving Patient Safety Measurement into Action
Susan Edgman-Levitan speaking during the Salzburg Global program on Moving Measurement into Action: Designing Global Principles for Measuring Patient SafetySusan Edgman-Levitan speaking during the Salzburg Global program on Moving Measurement into Action: Designing Global Principles for Measuring Patient Safety
Moving Patient Safety Measurement into Action
By: Mirabelle Morah 

Patient safety advocate Susan Edgman-Levitan speaks on the importance of patients’ perspective in health care

“We are absolutely committed to making the work that comes out of this seminar actionable and real,” said Susan Edgman-Levitan, the executive director of John D. Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital, USA.

Earlier this month, Edgman-Levitan and other experts from across the globe gathered at Schloss Leopoldskron, the historic home of Salzburg Global Seminar, to take part in Moving Measurement into Action: Designing Global Principles for Measuring Patient Safety.

The program happened in cooperation with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), a body which Edgman-Levitan belongs to as a senior fellow. After five days of discussion, presentations, and group work, participants helped shape new global principles for measuring patient safety. Edgman-Levitan says every participant is “absolutely committed” to making the work that comes out of the program actionable and real.

“We never came into this thinking we were just going to sit around for five days and talk and have a good time and play foosball,” Edgman-Levitan said. “We really came into this to make a difference and to have an impact, and I think the hard work is before us. But I think we've built a very, very strong foundation here and I'm very excited about seeing how this all plays out in different settings, in different countries, and with different international organizations.”

During last month’s program, participants considered what the role of the patient would be when designing global principles for measuring patient safety. As an advocate for understanding the perspective of patients in patients’ health care, Edgman-Levitan had a lot to share on the matter.

“Patients have a view of safety that no one else has. I think patients are the most astute observers of what our health care system is really like…” said Edgman-Levitan. “I think without getting their opinions and evaluations of how we're delivering care that we just engage in magical thinking about what a good job we're doing… I think that when managers and clinicians start partnering actively with patients to redesign or improve care, they very quickly realize that patients know a lot more about their operation than they do...

“If you put managers and clinicians in a room to redesign something, they will often come up with the most expensive, complicated, and wrong solution possible that costs a lot of money. And when you talk to patients and get their input, they typically come up with very elegant easy-to-implement, and most importantly, effective solutions to the problems that they're having because they know what is going to work for them… We can sometimes figure out the technical sides of that, but we would have never understood that if it weren't for their role in the design process.”

Edgman-Levitan is no stranger to Schloss Leopoldskron and Salzburg Global Seminar. The latest program marked her third visit. She previously attended health programs in 1998 and 2010. So, how does this program compare?

“I think this has been an amazing seminar...” said Edgman-Levitan. “[Participants are] very engaged in the discussions and very respectful of one another, willing to raise challenging issues in a way that I think really is illustrative of the heart of what the Salzburg Seminar mission is, where we can have healthy and incisive debate in a respectful way… I know I personally have met many people here that I have either read their work, I've looked at their websites, I've heard of them, and now I will have no hesitation to pick up the phone and call them and say, 'Hey, can we do something together?' And I think that's the power of the seminar.”


The Salzburg Global Seminar program, Moving Measurement into Action: Designing Global Principles for Measuring Patient Safety, is part of the Health and Health Care Innovation multi-year series. The program is being held in partnership with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. This program has been supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

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