On June 4, during the Awards of Appreciation official ceremony, the Museo Casa de la Memoria in Medellin received the award granted by the Images & Voices of Hope (IVOH) organization. This award is granted to the museum in recognition of its remarkable efforts to convey through art, images, and stories the evolution and transformation of the conflicts in Medellin and Colombia. The Museo Casa de la Memoria makes frequent contributions to the city's social resilience through the materialization of exhibition projects aimed at explaining the past and the cultural transformation of war-oriented reasoning, in order to imagine other possible futures as the basis for the collective construction of peace at the local, regional, and national levels. The Museo Casa de la Memoria builds restorative narratives that illustrate the manner in which individuals and communities learn to rebuild themselves and recover from the experiences endured during a difficult period in Colombia's history. Since its foundation, the museum has focused on emphasizing the stories of those individuals working to prevent a recurrence of the violence and to create more spaces for cultural and social transformation and reconciliation. The award granted by the IVOH consists of a commemorative plaque and an invitation—with all expenses covered—to participate in the annual media summit of this network, which this year will be held in the Catskill Mountains in New York, from June 22 through June 25. Images and Voices of Hope (IVOH) was created in 1999 as result of a dialogue among media professionals with the shared goal of assessing the impact of the media in society, which then led to three media organizations joining efforts: the Visions of a Better World Foundation, the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual Organization, and the Center for Advances in Appreciative Inquiry at Case Western Reserve University. IVOH is based in New York. In addition to the award, an annual media summit is organized that attracts media experts and professional—photographers, documentary filmmakers, journalists, advertisers, and artists, among others—who meet for a few days to exchange ideas and experiences and share their works. IVOH efforts are geared towards shedding light on the media's positive or negative impact on social resilience, which is an interesting point to approach from the perspective of the repair and reconstruction of memory. To this end, IVOH's mission is to strengthen the beneficial role of media outlets in the world by encouraging dialogue and reflection, and by granting awards, offering grants, and publishing powerful stories about the impact of the media. Further information is available at:
http://ivoh.org