Dr. Howard Zehr is Distinguished Professor of Restorative Justice at Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice & Peacebuilding and is co-director of the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice.
Dr. Carl Stauffer is Assistant Professor of Justice and Development Studies at Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice & Peacebuilding and is co-director of the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice.
Dear Howard,
I want to thank you for your wonderful reply to my arts and RJ notes in the RJ journal, I was also told that you are extremely busy and do not like to work on everything, so I think it’s an honour that you chose to reply to my post, reflecting also your passion for the intersection of arts and justice. I also wanted to let you know that the work of Sharon Daniel is now online, so you can take a look when you have time (http://www.insidethedistance.net). At the same time, I also just attended a session in our conference in Belfast on digital storytelling, a wonderful work on stories of victims and offenders, 3-4 minutes each, but truly powerful way of bridging the gap. They were not victims and offenders of each other let’s say, and only a few had gone through mediation, but the digital stories were shared among all of them, to a great impact. Unfortunately these stories are in the Museum here in Leuven, but I could find only one on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sncO4Vep824), which is not even subtitled in English, so it will only give you an idea of the format. Basically they ask detainees and victims to spend about 3 hours during five sessions and tell their story, they use pictures, drawings, voice, and a limited amount of lines, so it very condensed. I will try to learn more about it and let you know. Meanwhile all the best to you and your colleagues there, and thanks again!
Brunilda