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Project Dastaan

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Peace-building initiative
Project Dastaan
Founded2018
PurposePeacebuilding
Key peopleSparsh Ahuja, Sam Dalrymple, Saadia Gardezi
Websitewww.projectdastaan.org

Project Dastaan is a peace-building initiative that reconnects displaced refugees of the 1947 Partition of India that created the modern-day South Asian republics of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh with their childhood communities and villages through bespoke 360-degree digital experiences. Dastaan means 'story' in several languages of the subcontinent.

The Project aimed to virtually reconnect 75 first-hand witnesses of the Partition to their ancestral homes by 2022; however, Covid-19 restrictions reduced this target to 30 virtual returns. The Project has 3 features "Child of Empire", an interactive VR piece to be installed in museums, a feature film titled "The Lost Migration" and another film titled "Where the Birds Live".

Founded in 2018 by a group of four students at the University of Oxford, the venture is advised by high-profile historians, film-makers and advocates including Malala Yousafzai, Gabo Arora, Suroosh Alvi, William Dalrymple and Aanchal Malhotra.

Dastaan's Founding Director, Sparsh Ahuja, was a recipient of the San-Francisco based CatchLight Fellowship in 2018 in order to seed fund the project. The Project was also accepted onto Kaleidoscope VR's DevLab Accelerator in 2020 and is part of the UK-based National Partition Commemoration Project, which launched the 'South Asian Heritage Month' Campaign at British Parliament in 2018. In 2022, co-founder Saadia Gardezi was awarded a National Lottery Project Grant by Arts Council England to fund a multi-venue tour across the UK in commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of partition.

References

  1. Gould, William (30 January 2019). "Spaces before Partition: An Introduction". South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. 42: 73. doi:10.1080/00856401.2019.1554489.
  2. "A tale of two cities: Project aims to retell lost stories from Lahore, Delhi". Arab News. 22 January 2020. Retrieved 9 February 2020.
  3. Ferrarese, Marco (8 January 2020). "Virtual reality reconnects casualties of Partition with ancestral homes". Nikkei Asian Review. Retrieved 9 February 2020.
  4. "Far from home, refugees build digital heritage with virtual reality". Reuters. 2020-09-24. Retrieved 2022-07-15.
  5. Balaram, Rajashree (10 December 2018). "The initiative reconnecting survivors of Partition with the homes they left behind". Elle. Retrieved 9 February 2020.
  6. "Project Dastaan – Reconnecting Partition refugees to their ancestral homes". Retrieved 2022-07-15.
  7. Nair, Sumitra (24 August 2019). "Homeward bound". The Week. Retrieved 9 February 2020.
  8. "Advisors". Project Dastaan. Retrieved 9 February 2020.
  9. "Sparsh Ahuja". Retrieved 9 February 2020.
  10. Ferrarese, Marco (8 January 2020). "Virtual reality reconnects casualties of Partition with ancestral homes". Nikkei Asian Review. Retrieved 9 February 2020.
  11. "Partners". Project Dastaan. Retrieved 9 February 2020.
  12. Hughes, Sarah (15 July 2018). "Declare an annual day to mark partition of India, MPs told". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 February 2020.
  13. "Project Dastaan: Technology and storytelling for social impact and awareness". warwick.ac.uk. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  14. "Project Dastaan - Derby Museums". derbymuseums.org. Retrieved 2023-12-04.

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