One Humanity Institute or how I returned to Poland
Recently, I have embarked on another great adventure that is taking me back to Poland and back to Oświęcim/Auschwitz.
A few weeks before the ZPI Bearing Witness Retreat, I met Domen Kocevar, co-founder of the One Humanity Institute (OHI), a centre for peace and humanity, in Oświęcim. He had just visited my dear friend Mona Rabie (who is working on a peace centre project in Sinai) in Cairo to speak about the peace projects and was told he should try and meet with me also. Coincidence or fate, Domen flew to Vienna on the day after meeting Mona and drove right past Landshut where I was based at that moment.
So we met, we talked and he offered me to join the OHI to work for them. Even though the vision and idea of the One Humanity Institute spoke deeply to me, I could not see myself living and working in Poland at that moment. I knew, however, that I would be in Krakow and Oświęcim in a few weeks, so we decided to meet again in person in Poland and take it from there.
Already after setting foot into Krakow, and later Oświęcim, I felt clearly that - yes - I could move here and get involved in the One Humanity Institute.
And so it is happening, I am now living in Krakow and have been with OHI since November 2021.
And what exactly is the One Humanity Institute?
It is a global institute without walls that will be grounded in Oświęcim, developed to foster a culture of peace and reinvent and experiment how we live and work together as One Humanity.
The big vision is to build a centre for peace and humanity in the empty military barracks opposite the Auschwitz I Museum, in which some of the 2 million annual visitors to Auschwitz can process their experience and turn it into a form of active and empowered hope for a more compassionate future.
For now, we begin with a smaller pilot project in the center of Oświęcim. After one of several visits to Israel where Domen and Nina Meyerhof, the co-founders of OHI, presented the vision to Shoah survivors including some families from Oświęcim, they were gifted the former bakery building of the Horowitz family - some of whom were murdered in Oświęcim while some managed to escape to Israel. After this gift, Nina and Domen acquired the neighbouring building and these two buildings will now be turned into a pilot version of the big vision with a stronger focus on Oświęcim youth and local citizens rather than the international community.
We envision the OHI Bakery in the heart of town to become a safe and inclusive space for gatherings and exchange around a hot meal or freshly baked bread, a online and offline learning centre to equip youth as resilient learners with 21st century skills, a start-up hub, co-working space and youth think-tank to co-create a new story for humanity and the world, to offer the townspeople revived economic opportunities, and to be a creative outlet for international visitors and social innovators working on the edge of the future.
The Bakery will also host a peace library and conference rooms and the outdoor spaces will include permaculture gardens, art work, and additional spaces for gathering.
What makes the Institute special is the potent location of Auschwitz and the common notion of Oświęcim being a hostage of the past. We are working to transform two buildings and a town steeped in history into an instrument of peace by offering spaces for an emerging future of equity, hope and caring collaboration.
You can learn more here: www.onehumanity.institute (the site will be up-to-date in late January) and follow my updates as we travel on our journey of building the One Humanity Institute.
