Honouring the Victims of the Bosnian Genocide

We need your help to deliver a powerful live performance event during the 21st Srebrenica Memorial Month and produce an original project album consisting of music, poetry and spoken word inspired by the lessons learned from the survivors and the mothers of Srebrenica. As well as a short documentary film based on our trip to Srebrenica, that captures and recounts what has been described as the greatest atrocity in Europe since WWII.

Our project will bring together people from all different backgrounds and sections of the community. By bringing people together from all faiths and backgrounds to mark this difficult anniversary, our project will demonstrate that here in the UK we can unite against hatred and intolerance. 

Unite Against Hatred & Intolerance 

20 years ago on 11 July 1995, 8,372 Bosnians were systematically massacred and buried in mass graves in Srebrenica. Thousands of women, children and elderly people were forcibly deported and a large number of women were raped.

This year (July 2016) will be 21 years since the Srebrenica genocide - Memorial Month. The Srebrenica Memorial honours the victims and survivors of the genocide and war.

“Spread Love and Not Hate..."

A few years ago I took a physical and mental journey to understand what it really means to hate, forgive and survive by taking part in a learning visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina. With the aim that I would use the lessons from the dreadful events in Srebrenica to create a better world, one in which our differences become our strengths, and the only thing left intolerable is injustice. While I was there I had the honour of meeting the mothers who had survived the systematic massacre in Srebrenica. These incredible women had lost their husbands, sons, brothers and nephews. 

When I asked the surviving mothers, what I can do to help, they said to me; “spread love and not hate and share what you have learned here with others”.

The incredible bravery and strength of the mothers had a profound impact on me and how I see the world. This experience inspired me to form a partnership with the charity (Remembering Srebrenica) that organised the trip to create a unique creative arts project called ‘I Remember Srebrenica’.

After 10 months of planning (without any funding or resources but with the help of the charity and my community) I successfully managed to take a group of talented artists and students to Bosnia & Herzegovina to explore the atrocities of the Bosnian war & genocide. 

The whole creative team travelled together to experience a 4-day intensive learning visit about the Bosnian war and genocide. The team learned together how genocide has affected the people, lives and communities there from face to face meetings with the survivors and the mothers of Srebrenica.

Upon our return to London and within 4 weeks our collective group created powerful responses that were showcased last year (November 2015) at our tester event. The money generated from the event was donated to the mothers of Srebrenica that have been directly affected by the genocide and who are still identifying the bodies of their loved ones.

Forgotten Stories

We are retelling the forgotten stories of people who were brutally overlooked. We are reclaiming our collective failure to interfere as an international community and we symbolically recognising and apologising for this ugly part of history.

We are also giving a voice to the people who deserved it all along, the innocent victims. But we can’t do this alone. This is a collective effort on the part of people like you and me. I hereby am appealing to the part in you that rejects hatred, genocide and all things horrible.  I am appealing to the part of you that believes in justice, the restorative kind. We are trying to put right (within our means) what was once wrong.

Our Aim

This year on 15th July 2016 we plan deliver a bigger and a powerful event called 'I Remember Srebrenica’ that honours the victims and survivors of the genocide and war through poetry, music and spoken word.

We are working with our collective group who are deeply inspired to create work about human rights and war; creating bodies of work from survivors' recounts of what has been described as the greatest atrocity in Europe since WWII.

Our aim is to teach current and future generations about the consequences of hatred and intolerance through creative arts.

Your generous donations and support will not only enable us to deliver a powerful event to the diverse communities in London but it will also enable us to create a powerful project album and a powerful a short documentary film.

All the crowd-funding raised will be used to cover the following aspects of the project:

1. Venue Hire & Technical equipment hire.
2. Hiring of a projector to screen our documentary film.
3. Design, production & printing of the project album.
4. Marketing & Publicity (printing of leaflets & booklets inc p&p).
5. Travel Expenses & Catering for our artists, students & volunteers (during rehearsals & final performance).

How You Can Help!

Please donate whatever you can and help make our project's event a reality. Please do not underestimate whatever efforts you can bring forth.

Thank you.