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From Stefano:

Do you think that in your contexts there is a lack of reflections from the media about the perpetrators?

Maja: Yes, in Serbia the terms and language used to describe violence against women, forced relationships and crimes commited against women is built to avoid the guilt of perpetrators.

Dr Earl, in our context, we decided to focus on the victims and not on the perpetrators to avoid the spotlight on their narratives.

Laura: a few years ago, the media used to describe femicides as "passionate crimes". Fortunately, this has changed and we don't think this will change.Through different actions, we are having an impact on our societies, the media and the communities. Now, we should think about how to have an impact on state policies. There is no going back. We need to have strong public policies with the support of communities to move forward and not backwards.

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These ideas and information help us develop our future projects on transitional justice,  Abdulilah Sallam -Yemen

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Loved this idea of education contributing to a shared humanity + leading to strong social movements

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A strong education can contribute to a shared humanity to build a strong social movement - Dr Earl

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from Silvia: dissemination strategies, how are you able to reach out to the larger community to make sure the message is spread out and, in particular, engage youth in the conversations?

Laura: since we are a memorial museum we have an agreement with the ministry of education. Every year we receive around 400 students who participate in our outreach programmes

Dr Earl: we collaborate with our communities and we partner with them to create outreach

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De Sally Roesch Wagner

Could the presenters talk about where they get funding for their programs?

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Next Conversation Starter Series will explore
the transgender experience.

Discuss the unique issues that
impact transgender lives

To have hopeful answers to hard questions.

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to reduce discrimination, you have to know that the problems exist

Revealed through Disarm Hate discourse:

Intersectionality leads to conflict among transgender

LGBTQ Community is the only group in society that encompasses everyone (race, gender, sexuality, faith, socioeconomic status, etc.)

Race/gender hierarchy exist among LGBTQ+ and it determines the politics of who gets what, when, and how.

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from Silvia:

Back to intersectionality as key when understanding/addressing discrimination.

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onePULSE Academy: Education arm of onePULSE Foundation committed to promoting acceptance and inclusion through innovative, reflective, learning methods.

Utilize evidence-based research.

Aim to positively impact social change at the individual, group, and community levels.

Designed to be exciting, interesting, smart, and engaging to ensure that the intended outcomes will be achieved.

Conversation Starter Series: Short film and panel discussion on social issue topics that tend to fall below society’s collective conscious stream of thought.

90 Days: HIV among heterosexual relationships where the woman is infected

From Selma to Stonewall: Exploring similarities between LGBTQ+ equality and the Black Civil Rights Movement

Disarm Hate: Nine LGBTQs come together after the Pulse Massacre on a national rally for LGBTQIA equal rights and challenge America's obsession with gun violence.

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When we build empathy, the discrimination amongst each other starts to disappear - Dr Earl Mowatt

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"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

We will not let hate win.

Visiting thePulse Interim Memorial

Stay Informed

Sign up to receive exclusive updates about the onePULSE Foundation.

Contact onePULSE FoundationFight the War Against Hate

© 2021 onePULSE Foundation * PO Box 2126 Orlando, Fl 32802

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The onePULSE Foundation is a 501(c)(3) incorporated by the owners of Pulse Nightclub. The onePULSE Foundation was established to create a sanctuary of hope following the tragic day in American history - Sunday, June 12, 2016 - to honor the 49 lives that were taken, the 68 others who were injured and the countless first responders and healthcare professionals who treated them.

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from Dr Earl:

The Foundation was established to create a sanctuary of hope following the tragic day in American history–Sunday, June 12, 2016–to honor the 49 Angels that were taken, the 68 others who were injured and the countless first responders and healthcare professionals who treated them.

This fund is intended to support a memorial that opens hearts, a museum that opens minds, educational programs that open eyes and legacy scholarships that open doors.

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from Vanessa Johnson (Gage Foundation)

The networking of women between towns and villages is so powerful! Connecting then to support each other and to be resources to each other means long term change in their lives. Magnificent!

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from Maja:

We have built 7 shelters for women survivors of domestic violence. The issue of domestic violence is worrying in Serbia, and after conducting research we discovered that the majority of women return to their abusers' homes due to economic dependence.

Because of that, fund B92 organized "She Empowerment" an economic empowerment project to assist women not only in the psycho-social sphere.

We established 3 social enterprises in 3 towns: a sewing shop and two vegetable stands.

We also started the project " Journalists against Violence against Women"

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from Laura:

One of our main missions is to educate about human rights, and to this end we work for every human being.

Our doors are open to everyone.

This policy of inclusion has led us to carry out activities with the local LGTBI community and to conduct research on the repression of LGTBI people during the Trujillo dictatorship (1930-1961). With this research it was discovered that the LGTBI community was totally invisibilized during the dictatorship. The dictatorship used the identification as part of the LGTBI community as an attack on its opponents. That is, belonging to the collective was used as an insult and defamation. Homosexuality was used as a political tool to punish their opponents.

Much of the violence we see today against the LGTBI community is linked to the policies of the dictatorship.

We believe and teach, not only to our students but also to our staff, that everyone must be treated equally.

The Memorial Museum of the Dominican Republic is a safe place for the LGTBI community.

LGTBI rights are human rights

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from Alejandra:

Feminist movements, movements for diversity, are a light for the world in which we live in.

The role we must play as sites of conscience is to articulate our traumatic pasts based on the demands of the present.

In the case of ESMA, we are very clear that the system of extermination in Argentina was very much linked to combating new perspectives of seeing the world.

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Yesterday was an impactful day, as we drew from our work as Sites of Conscience and from the experiences of our community, to call attention to the way multiple systems of oppression interact in the lives of those with multiple marginalized identities and in particular, to the multiple factors or root causes of the violence and discrimination against people due to their gender, gender identity and sexual orientation.

The day started with Coalition’s Board Member Ms. Emelda Davis reminding us of the importance to understand intersectionality, so that marginalized groups and their political interests do not continue to be marginalized both outside and inside the LGBTQI movement that represents them, and do not create a feedback loop in which LGBTQI activism is both more difficult for marginalized activists and disproportionately less representative of their interests.

In our first session, Sally Roesch Wagner, from the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation in the USA, connected the roots of discrimination and violence against women, girls and the LGBTI community in western society, to a time when canon law became common law, placing a man in control of a woman, her body, soul, her sense of person. And that historically this has become an entrenched behaviour against women, girls and the LGBTI community because ‘something that disrupts the absolute gender identity disrupts common law', canon, religious and moral right’  – and in effect, it disrupts western ways of life.

Sally reminded us that this process extends to people of colour and colonialism in general  and that today’s fight for women and LGBTI rights is only possible because a fight for selfhood – the right to be separate from men – came before. She called on us as a network to reflect about our struggles today in the western world through the lens of western religious fundamentals.

Antonio Parada, from Asociación Pesaje Begoña, in Spain guided us through how historical discrimination against LGBTI communities in Spain is expressed in a lack of heritage representation connected to this community’s history, struggles and achievements. Antonio reminds us that LGBTQI rights and historical discrimination that become entrenched in norms and prejudices are difficult to combat or erase in the world today.  He discussed the case of works of art that are protected as museum content but not as LGBTQI heritage in the public sphere, in essence, creating a gap of information and public consciousness about how pervasive this heritage is as human heritage, human history and human nature. Providing legal frameworks and protection for LGBTQI sites as sites of conscience and for the historical memory of LGBTQI people is important.

Kate Potter, from Longfellow House, in the USA brought to our attention how historical revisionism through puritanical lenses can erase the open-heartedness and acceptance that existed, to be fair, within pockets of society – and that this erasure skewed our perspectives today to a reality where heteronormativity is the only reality.

She reminded us of the importance of sharing stories is a foundation of building a movement of upending the stranglehold of discrimination, to understand the context, the history of discrimination and seek out, as a start, how to open peoples’ minds about acceptance. She also drew our attention to the centrality of normalising slow and steady dialogue along with a framing within justice and start building a movement against bias.

Lastly, Sally reminded us that even though most religions, while bringing oppressive elements/passages in their doctrines that repress women and vulnerable groups such as LGBTQI people, also have progressive elements/passages within them. It is important to unlock their potential and look for allies who believe in these progressive parts – can help push the agenda of freedom forward.

In our second session, we engaged and were deeply struck by the personal journeys shared by Julia Applegate, from Equitas Health Institute, USA and Rose Kigere, from Women’s Rights Initiative, Uganda.

Julia shared how her journey of resistance against a system that oppressed non gender conforming people, and self discovery led her to the realization that  the roots of this discrimination she and others suffer lie in a society which is deeply misogenist, have hatred for women and femininity and carry rigid prescriptions of gender. She affirms that gender is not understood enough as a spectrum, but as a binary – and how this realisation and personal experiences allowed her with time to understand and embrace her sexual orientation, and shaped her work as an activist for LGBTI rights. She works with LGBTI communities in Ohio to memorialise places of significance for the LGBTI community and reminded us that, although oppressions may differ in different contexts the battle for LGBTI people is a world one – and that we must stand in community to win the fight at a global scale. She also called us to work through the lens of intersectionality and for those with privilege to share it with others to strengthen the anti-oppression movement.

Rose Kigere brought her personal experience and struggles as a young girl growing up in Uganda, and how being anti-conformist shaped her struggles, but also gave her strength to fight for women and girls’ rights. According to Rose, in places where the ground is not leveled between men and women, where “gender roles go with you wherever you go”, only a cohesive movement led by women can counter that reality. Only by standing up as a community can the risks of speaking up in oppressive cultures be mitigated. She pins the historical factors of discrimination against women and girls in Uganda on poverty and uneven access to quality education, therefore critical thinking. She reminds us that our strength lies within the women survivors in our communities, and their unique strategies and positions must be highlighted. Her organisation, WORI, is developing the first East African Women’s Museum to elevate the journey and stories of women from that region for the world to know.

Lastly – all speakers called on us to build a movement to confront discrimination against women, girls and the LGBTI community.

And that brings us to today’s session, where we will draw from the experience of Sites of Conscience and their communities on how to confront bias, stigmatization and       persecution against women, girls and the LGBTI community, through programs and projects with a clear call to action.

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Alejandra Naftal, Executive Director, ESMA – Argentina

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Alejandra Naftal, Executive Director, ESMA – Argentina

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Executive Director of the Museo Sitio de Memoria ESMA - former Clandestine Detention, Torture and Extermination Center, since its inauguration in May 2015. General co-curator of the museum's museographic project.  Naftal is a museologist. She has a master's degree in Institutional Image and Communication and Social Anthropology. In the area of Memory and Human Rights she was Coordinator of the Oral Archive of Memoria Abierta, Acción Coordinada de Organizaciones de Derechos Humanos. She carried out the historical research, elaboration and development of the signage of the Espacio para la Memoria Ex ESMA. She worked as a museologist at the National Directorate of Museums, at the National Secretariat of Culture and at the National Museum of Fine Arts.

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Dr Earl Mowatt, Vice-President of Education, One Pulse Foundation – USA 

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Dr Earl Mowatt, Vice-President of Education, One Pulse Foundation – USA 

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Dr. Earl Mowatt serves as the Vice President of Education at onePULSE Foundation. He has a functional role in steering the Foundations' vision of acceptance and inclusion into the education programs. His charge is in developing curriculum and methodology that yield positive learning outcomes, implementing systems for performance tracking, measurement, and evaluation, and ensuring that each program is met with an evidence- based strategy.

Previously, Dr. Mowatt held University administrative faculty positions as department chair for Sociology and for Justice & Society Studies. He guided the strategic plan of both departments and led faculty in important processes for developing curriculum that had positive impact on learning outcomes. His area of expertise is the intersection of social inequality and social psychology.

Dr. Mowatt also held key positions under two grants funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA); both with positive outcomes. As a Suicide Prevention Specialist, he conducted research and developed effective programs that measurably reduced suicide risk and suicide ideation formed from social isolation and stigma. He then served as Principal investigator for SAMHSA’s HIV, Hepatitis C (HCV), and substance abuse grant where he developed a strategy for accessible HIV and HCV testing and innovated an effective social media intervention program. Both grants targeted college-aged LGBTQI, people of color, and military veterans suffering from PTSD. Additionally, Dr. Mowatt is a published author on race relations and has presented research at various conferences throughout the United States. He devotes his time out of the office developing social IQ / cultural capital mentoring curriculum for at-risk middle-school-aged kids. He is driven by improving the life chances of underserved, marginalized, and overlooked populations

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Maja Cecen, Director, Fund B92 – Serbia 

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Maja Cecen, Director, Fund B92 – Serbia 

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Maja Cecen is managing Fund B92, a foundation established by independent media house B92, as its Director. Since she started working for B92 media 20 years ago, Maja managed projects mostly dealing with topics related to facing up to difficult past, war crimes, violations of human rights in wars of former Yugoslavia, post-war effects on society in Serbia, etc. Through numerous media forms, from radio shows to documentary films, these projects aimed to promote truth and reconciliation programming in the region, human rights, respect of freedom of information, rule of law and democratic society.

Maja continued this work after being appointed as Fund B92 Director 14 years ago, focusing on promoting responsibility and conscience through different projects that Fund B92 implements – from cultural activities through documentary film making, education and workshops for youth and for disadvantaged women, to large charity activities that aim to solve social problems in Serbia and the region. Projects dedicated to women are one of the pillars of Fund B92 and its director’s work – during the last 15 years number of projects and actions have been successfully implemented in the organization, focusing on the safety and health of women survivors of domestic violence, and development of their potentials and their contribution to building a better society.

Ms Cecen graduated from Faculty for Media and Communication in Belgrade, at Communications department. As a journalist, she co-operated with numerous independent press media in Belgrade from 1994 till 2001 when she started working for B92.

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Laura Perez, Executive Director, Museo Memorial de la Resistencia Dominicana – Dominican Republic

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Laura Perez, Executive Director, Museo Memorial de la Resistencia Dominicana – Dominican Republic

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Law graduate from the Universidad Iberoamericana, with a Master's degree in Museum Studies from the Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña (UNPHU), Postgraduate in International Trade and Finance from the University of Barcelona and a Diploma in Human Rights and Pedagogy of Memory from the Henri Dunant Foundation in Santiago de Chile. She is IVLP 2018 in administration and management of non-profit associations. She is currently Deputy Director of the Memorial Museum of the Dominican Resistance.