CHLOE SHARROCK

Alhawiat is an association that I founded in June 2017, exploring memory and identity transformations of women in times of conflict in the Middle-East.
Establishing the first chapter in Lebanon, Alhawiat is gathering the testimonies of Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian women and empowering them through story-telling, in order to promote peace-building and construct a collective memory. 

 

Women are the first witnesses of the jolts of history, and their role in conflict, either as victims or actresses, is too often underestimated. By creating a bridge between women from different communities that all share a common territory, it will be possible to relate 50 years of conflict in the region, and show the different repercussions of conflict on the civil population. This work also highlights on what extent conflicts is a factor of identity alteration, and the role of memory in its reconstruction.  

A website gathering the testimonies and photo documentaries built around each story and regularly fed by articles written by our team of redactors will hence be put in place and act as a dynamic platform where testimonies and researches overlap.

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Finally, Alhawiat tends to organise conferences and workshops based on each women's stories, by establishing partnerships with local universities and associations. Furthermore, the workshops will be addressed to the youth or women, and will be based on activities linked to each issue faced by the women of the project. Acting upstream of the violence and anticipating mistakes that could be made is the goal of Alhawiat. 

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Building a collective memory from individual stories is necessary for the identity construction of a society, in order to prevent the mistakes of the past to be repeated. Alhawiat believes that story-telling has the power to impact people and act as an effective vector of change. 

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Follow the project on Facebook, Instagram

and its dedicated website. 

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