| Project Dastaan | |
| Founded Date: | 2018 |
| Key People: | Sparsh Ahuja, Sam Dalrymple, Saadia Gardezi |
| Purpose: | Peacebuilding |
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[1] through bespoke 360-degree digital experiences.[2] Dastaan means 'story' in several languages of the subcontinent.[3]
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.[4] The Project has 3 features "Child of Empire", an interactive VR piece to be installed in museums,[5] a feature film titled "The Lost Migration" and another film titled "Where the Birds Live".[6]
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,[7] Suroosh Alvi, William Dalrymple and Aanchal Malhotra.[8]
Dastaan's Founding Director, Sparsh Ahuja, was a recipient of the San-Francisco based CatchLight Fellowship in 2018[9] in order to seed fund the project. The Project was also accepted onto Kaleidoscope VR's DevLab Accelerator in 2020[10] and is part of the UK-based National Partition Commemoration Project,[11] which launched the 'South Asian Heritage Month' Campaign at British Parliament in 2018.[12] 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.[13] [14]