In a city exhausted by siege and covered in layers of collective pain, an unexpected light was born. The project implemented by the SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties, in partnership with the Abductees’ Mothers Association and supported by the DT Institute, became far more than a human-rights activity. It was a sincere attempt to turn suffering into memory, memory into justice, and victims, youth, and artists into storytellers of truth.

In the heart of a city under siege, the question began to unfold: How can art embrace wounded cities? And how can young people become the makers of a future that rises beyond the ashes?

It all began when more than 150 young men and women underwent an intensive two-month training under the SPARK project. The program included modules on transitional justice, restorative justice, reparations, case studies, group exercises, and visual content that awakened a new sense of awareness within them. It was not a theoretical course but a human experience that transported participants from passive listeners to active changemakers. And once they returned to their communities, each of them carried an unfamiliar feeling—that they were not merely trainees, but partners in rebuilding public consciousness and contributing to a path their society had long been denied.

Among those youth was Turan. He didn’t approach the training as a temporary phase but as a seed that turned his life upside down. The moment the program ended, he threw himself into every activity—attending sessions, joining discussions, proposing initiatives. His vision was clear: justice is not files written on paper, but memories that must be preserved.

When he proposed turning victims’ stories into a visual exhibition that could give meaning to their pain, the idea became the first spark of the Memory Museum.

Turan described the impact of the training:

“The training shaped the design of the museum idea. We learned how to present victims’ stories with dignity, how to avoid re-traumatizing them, and how to make truth and reconciliation—not revenge—the core purpose.”

Turan transformed from a trainee into the leader of a volunteer team of 38 young people, organizing them into committees for media, logistics, reception, and documentation. He didn’t just lead them—he gave them the conviction that art can express what words cannot. As the idea evolved, the museum became an artistic, human, and national platform receiving visitors from inside and outside the city, telling the stories of the siege with colors and faces that resembled truth more than art.

In one corner of the museum stood Hadeel Mahmoud. A child when she lost both her hands in the Kadahah area in 2017, she found herself facing a painting that captured that moment: a little girl running through smoke and dust searching for her missing hands, her terrified eyes trying to grasp what was no longer there. Hadeel stared at the painting for a long time as if time had pulled her back—only this time, she wasn’t afraid. She whispered softly:

“I used to think I had lost everything… but art gave me back myself.”

Her painting was not a record of a brutal moment but a silent acknowledgment that what happened to her did not erase her voice. Today, Hadeel is part of the activities team—telling her story to children and women, joining art workshops designed to support victims. She transformed from victim to symbol, from wound to window of hope.

In another corner was a small painting almost forgotten among the larger works. Drawn by the young girl Silo Al-Areqi, it depicted a thin child holding a doll amid rubble, with a faint phrase behind him: “A lost friend.” Many visitors passed without noticing it—until a boy named Islam Kamal Al-Sharabi stopped in front of it. He pointed at the painted child and said with painful innocence:

“Masaheb…”
Meaning: I want to be his friend.

He stood there for nearly 45 minutes—silent, smiling at times, holding back tears at others. One by one, visitors gathered, watching the bond forming between a child of this world and a child sketched in another. The small painting became the center of the exhibition—a human bridge reminding everyone that art can connect souls even in the harshest moments. It did what hundreds of words could not: it returned tenderness to childhood.

But the story didn't end there. In another section, drenched in shades of red, Adnan shared his story. He was in third grade when a sniper’s bullet killed his friend Mohammed right before his eyes. He carried him with his small hands as blood covered his palms, screaming in the street where half his heart fell. He lived in heavy silence for years—until the museum team asked him to paint his story.

He sat before a blank canvas and painted for the first time since childhood: a stone-like body embracing besieged Taiz, arms reaching for life, a river of blood cutting through the painting, and three black birds flying overhead. When he finished, he said:

“This is Mohammed… but it’s also Taiz.”

Adnan was no longer just a child who lost a friend—he became a maker of memory. His painting now stands as a visual cry against forgetting, turning pain into an open book for visitors, researchers, and the community. He learned that art is not an escape from the wound—but a way to heal it.

The experiences of the youth, victims, and artists carried a profound lesson: justice is not confined to courts or reports. Justice can be a brushstroke, a canvas, a trembling voice sharing a story, or a child standing before a painting whispering, “I want to be his friend.”

And this is how the Memory Museum was born—not as a place of display, but as a collective acknowledgment that pain must be seen, memory must be preserved, and truth does not expire with time. It is a space that restored victims’ voices, gave the city back its face, and proved that humans can transform wounds into meaning.

In the end, what the youth, victims, and artists created was not just an initiative—it was a new rewriting of the idea of transitional justice itself. Between colors, brushstrokes, children’s tears, and memories of war, pain turned into narrative, narrative into awareness, and awareness into a promise that no matter how long a war may last… it cannot erase the stories of those who lived it.