Promoting lasting peace through innovative learning

 

In Cambodia, an interactive smartphone app is helping educate students about the country’s devastating history under the Khmer Rouge.

It is now more than 40 years since the Khmer Rouge’s rule over Cambodia came to an end. Between 1975 and 1979, the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), as they were officially known, led a brutal totalitarian regime that oversaw the mass murder of up to an estimated two million people - almost a quarter of the country’s population at the time. Many of the victims dying by execution, torture, starvation, untreated diseases or as a result of being overworked in the regime’s many hard-labour camps.

It is a period that will forever echo in Cambodia’s history, but one that society struggles to deal with to this day. This has led to a lack of willingness to openly discuss this time in society, which in turn has resulted in a culture of collective silence and a legacy of limited local documentation and resources available to those seeking to learn about this devastating period in the country’s history.

In recent years, international, governmental, and non-governmental institutions have been working to help address this – to help heal the trauma experienced by survivors, and to help ensure that history never repeats itself.

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In full: https://www.unops.org/news-and-stories/stories/promoting-lasting-peace-through-innovative-learning

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