Healing the Wounds of Slavery aims at healing and addressing the wounds and psycho-social, economic and political consequences of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and slave history. The hope is to create pathways towards personal, cultural, relational and institutional transformation.
Healing the Wounds of Slavery: Towards Mutual Recovery is a joint programme of the UNESCO Slave Route Project and the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace (GHFP) Research Institute.
The transatlantic slave trade involved a systematic deportation, and dehumanisation, of tens of millions of Africans. Its objective was to exploit their bodies and minds for economic profit.
UNESCO Slave Route Project and the GHFP collaborate with an aim to develop conceptions, methodologies, approaches and practices of healing that can also help address the roots of racism.
The “Healing the Wounds of Slavery” programme is the fruit of a collaboration amongst several significant partners, including the UNESCO Slave Route Project, the GHFP Research Institute, and the Berkley Centre for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University.
In view of the ignorance or concealment of major historical events that constitutes an obstacle to mutual understanding, reconciliation and cooperation amongst peoples, UNESCO embarked on a project that aims at breaking the silence surrounding the slave trade and slavery.
The development of the Healing the Wounds of Slavery programme requires a wide range of involvement and support from governments, NGOs, philanthropic foundations, businesses, educational institutions, communities and individuals.