The Justice of Being Heard: Acknowledgment, Memory, and the Work of Peace

What do people seek when they seek justice? A judgment may establish responsibility. A truth commission may create a public record. An oral history may give someone the opportunity to tell a story that has long gone unheard. Although these processes have different powers and purposes, each can provide something fundamental: acknowledgment. Drawing on her work as a human rights lawyer and co-founder of Rerooted, Anoush Baghdassarian, along with her co-founder Ani Schug, will explore acknowledgment as the connective tissue among law, memory, storytelling, and peacebuilding. They will trace the evolution of their original Project for Peace documenting the experiences of displaced Syrian-Armenians into an international oral-history and advocacy initiative, while reflecting on what survivors and communities ask of institutions, advocates, and listeners.

Anoush Baghdassarian is a co-founder of Rerooted Archive and the winner of the $50,000 2026 Projects for Peace Alumni Award. Baghdassarian and her co-founder, Ani Schug, will deliver this year’s keynote address about their life’s work in justice, human rights, and conflict transformation. Baghdassarian is a graduate of Harvard Law School with a master’s degree in Human Rights Studies from Columbia University. Her co-founder, Ani Schug, studied Politics and Middle Eastern Studies at Pomona College, and currently serves as a DOJ Accredited Representative for a nonprofit in Philadelphia, representing clients to reunite with their families, become permanent residents, defend against deportation, and apply for citizenship. Baghdassarian and Schug co-founded Rerooted during their initial Project for Peace as college students. Ten years later, Rerooted is a community-centered digital archive and advocacy organization that preserves Armenian stories, strengthens identity, and supports justice efforts for Armenian communities facing displacement, violence, and erasure. The organization is founded on the idea that no matter how many times Armenians have been rerouted by conflict, they have continued to reroot in strong, thriving communities. Today, Rerooted has grown to include more than 25 communities, collected more than 400 testimonies, and trained more than 90 team members in its work of preserving memory and using it for action.

Rerooted celebrates and explores Armenian identity in communities around the world and advocates for their just and safe futures. Its digital collections of testimonies, photographs, and documents are designed to be accessible to researchers, teachers, artists, community members, and advocates. Through those collections, Baghdassarian and her collaborators create educational resources, interactive maps, legal reports, cultural heritage projects, and tools that show the resilience of Armenian communities while also supporting accountability and recognition.

The annual Projects for Peace Alumni Award provides up to $50,000 in support of ongoing peacebuilding efforts of past Projects for Peace grant recipients who demonstrate innovation and persistence in working for peace and transforming conflict.

“The Armenian community globally has been rerouted so many times, but everywhere we go, we re-root ourselves in strong, thriving Armenian communities. May our community, and all communities who have faced atrocity, never lose that resilience and hope and determination to preserve their identity and fight for justice.“ ~Anoush Baghdassarian

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