James Mackay, a documentary photographer whose work was featured in ‘Voices From Burma‘ — an event presented last year by Voice of Witness, the Magnum Foundation, the Open Society Foundations and PEN American Center at the Asia Society in New York — has released a new collection of photos chronicling formerly imprisoned monks returning to their monastery after years in prison. Click here to view this stunning collection of photographs.
Click here to learn more about Nowhere to be Home, Voice of Witness’ collection of oral histories from Burma and the diaspora.
Next month, Voice of Witness editors Ayelet Waldman, Robin Levi and Peter Orner will be speaking at upcoming events in New York and California. We hope to see you there!
February 8th, 2012: Join Robin Levi, Ayelet Waldman, and Inside This Place, Not of It narrator Francesca Salavieri for a reading and talk at NYU. Click here for details.
In California:
February 13th, 2012: Join Peter Orner (editor of Voice of Witness titles Underground Americaand Hope Deferred) in conversation with Peter Godwin (The Fear) for a discussion of life and struggle in Zimbabwe at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. …
Voice of Witness is proud to announce that our new teaching resource created in collaboration with the Korematsu Institute is now available online. The resource booklet features excerpts from Patriot Acts: Narratives of Post-9/11 Injusticealongside lesson plans that focus on building awareness and empathy as well as fostering a deeper understanding of contemporary civil rights issues in the U.S. So far, this booklet has been distributed as part of a free teacher’s kit to more than 500 educators in preparation for January 30th- California’s second annual Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution.
In The Nation, Alia tells the story of Shukri Abu-Baker, imprisoned in the highly secretive Communication Management Unit (CMU) in Terre Haute, Indiana, with severe limits on communication with his family. Click here to read the full article.
In The Christian Science Monitor, Malek denounces the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorizes the indefinite detention of American citizens suspected of terrorism. The Act was signed into law by President Obama on New Year’s Eve. Click here to read the full article.
Also in the news, Patriot Acts narrator Talat Hamdani was featured on the New …
“Hope Deferred might be the most important publication to have come out of Zimbabwe in the past thirty years.” – Alexandra Fuller, Harper’s Magazine
“[The Fear is] a document that should be read by anyone interested in the sacrifices that people are willing to make for the sake of democracy.” – The New York Times
Event details:
Monday, February 13 at 7 pm
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
3200 California St.
Members $17 | Public $20 | Student $10
The review included an interview with Robin Levi, who says, “I wanted people to see who these women are that we’re putting inside. When people see them and hear their voices, they’ll ask—are we safer because they’re inside? Are our communities safer? What are we solving my doing this? These women deserve more from us and we deserve more as a community and as a society.”
This month, Nowhere to be Homeeditor Zoë West and special guests will host a reading in Chiang Mai, Thailand, as well as a discussion with the participants and guests from the School for Shan State Nationalities Youth (SSSNY). The event is presented by The Best Friend Library. To learn more about the event, click here. Event details:
Sunday 8 January 2012
7 – 8:30 p.m.
Sangdee Gallery
5 Sirimankalajarn Road,
Soi 5 • Chiang Mai
Watch Robin Levi & Angela Davis in Conversation at the Hammer Museum
Earlier this month, Robin Levi joined writer and activist Angela Davis in conversation at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Watch a video of their conversation here. For more information on the talk, click here.
Robin Levi is co-editor of the newest title by Voice of Witness, Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women’s Prisons. For more information on Inside This Place or to purchase the book, click here.
‘Is Burma on the Brink of Real Change?’ Voice of Witness Contributor Thelma Young Featured on WBAI Tonight
Nowhere to Be Home assistant editor and U.S. Campaign for Burma Communications and Development Director, Thelma Young, will be featured discussing current developments in Burma on WBAI’s Asia Pacific Forum tonight. You can listen to Asia Pacific Forum at 9pm ET on WBAI 99.5 in New York City, or listen online here.
Last summer, Kristen Levine, a teacher at San Domenico High School in San Anselmo, CA, taught an oral history lesson at Uganda Rural Development Training Girls School in Uganda. Here, Levine shares her experience teaching with the Voice of Witness title Patriot Acts in Uganda.
URDT Girls School (URDT) is a boarding school for 240 girls in the Kibaale district of Uganda near the Rwandan border, devoted to addressing the problem of girls dropping out of school due to pregnancy, early marriage, and gender inequality and poverty. In 2008, my daughter Sydney raised nearly $14,000 for two huge greenhouses for the school and in the summer of 2011, she and I went to see the greenhouses in action.
Voice of Witness is a nonprofit book series that empowers those most closely affected by contemporary social injustice. Using oral history as a foundation, the series depicts human rights crises around the world through the stories of the men and women who experience them. Voice of Witness was founded by author Dave Eggers and physician/human rights scholar Lola Vollen, and is the nonprofit division of McSweeney's Books.
James Mackay, a documentary photographer whose work was featured in ‘Voices From Burma‘ — an event presented last year by Voice of Witness, the Magnum Foundation, the Open Society Foundations and PEN American Center at the Asia Society in New York — has released a new collection of photos chronicling formerly imprisoned monks returning to their monastery after years in prison. Click here to view this stunning collection of photographs. 
