Between 2008 and 2009, UMAM Documentation and Research (UMAM D&R) conducted eight workshops on transitional justice organized by experts with the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). Workshops took place over consecutive weekends with an average of 70 people in two different hotels in Beirut. It targeted the army, the Internal Security Forces (ISF), political parties, and civil society actors. Workshop minutes were recorded and a digital publication on the event was produced.

In 2007, UMAM Documentation and Research (UMAM D&R) launched an exhibition titled ‘Collecting Dahia’, which comprised of posters and testimonies about how Dahia, the southern suburbs of Beirut, have changed over the years. These photos and testimonies were collected through various platforms for people to express their perceptions and experiences of this change by means of photos and testimonies. The exhibition portrayed old photos and new photos from Dahia together, which were taken by pre-war and current inhabitants of the same places in an attempt to express the type of life and stories it embodied and to provoke discussions on memory between them.

In May 2006, held an event in its hangar under the title ‘Srebrenica - Crime & Punishment’, which consisted of a photo exhibition followed by a round table discussion and film screening. It brought together individuals from the Sarajevo documentation centre for war crimes, people from Sudan, as well as photographers.

UMAM Documentation and Research (UMAM D&R) carried out a six-day event in 2005 under the title ‘Civil Violence and War Memories’ that took place in Masrah el-Madina, Hamra and in the Hangar in Haret Hreik, Beirut. The project consisted of film screenings, photo exhibitions and two round tables with academics. It was motivated by the idea of doing the event in two separate places so that participants would move from Hamra to Dahiyeh to “transgress mental borders.” It targeted students, film directors and “people interested in attending exhibitions and films.” Producer George Nassar participated in the discussion. One of the films was ‘Circle of Deceit’ 1981, another ‘Massacre’ 2004, directed by Monika Borgmann, Lokman Slim, and Hermann Theissen, was only officially screened one time before because it was banned by the Lebanese government. The film is a series of interviews with six perpetrators who participated in the massacre of Sabra and Shatila in 1982. Other films covering the conflicts in Rwanda, Bosnia and Kurdistan were also screened and discussed. The event was documented, recorded,and covered by a press conference.

The work of The Committee of the Families of the Kidnapped and Disappeared in Lebanon (CFKDL) began in November 1982. During the war and in the light of the sharp sectarian and geographic divisions, the families of victims of kidnapping and enforced disappearance joined forces to push the Lebanese Government to carry out an acceptable scientific investigation process to uncover the fates of all the missing and forcibly disappeared persons. CFKDL launched ‘The Right to Know’ campaign in 2000 and has been working in collaboration with a network of CSOs and NGOs. Following CFKDLs’ efforts, the Lebanese Government formed the Committee of Inquiry in the Fates of the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared (CIFMFD) in 2000 and acknowledged war crimes and the presence of mass graves across the country. CFKDL’s most important achievement to date was winning a lawsuit against the government before the State Council in March 2014, as a consequence, the government was obligated by the State Council’s decision to share with the families of victims a copy of CIFMFD’s findings report without any restriction, derogation, or exception. Before this decision, the Lebanese government had decided to keep this report confidential and considered all missing and forcibly disappeared persons killed during the civil war. In addition, prior to the investigation in 2000, the government attempted to fold this issue and offered legal procedures under Law 434, which families of victims can undertake to reclassify the status of their missing family members as legally deceased without evidence of their death or examination of the whereabouts of their remains. This Law was regarded by the CFKDL as an attempt to buy their silence, ignore their right to know the truth and dismiss the possibility of finding missing Lebanese alive in Syrian or Israeli detention centres.

Later reports by further government-appointed Committees of Inquiry focused on cases of detainees in Israel and Syrian detention centres. Even though, civil war mass graves were discussed for the first time in official reports without any reaction from the public. These reports quickly lost credibility after the release of 54 prisoners from Syrian jails in 2000, which suggested the possibility of finding missing and disappeared persons alive in Syrian prisons.

Today, CFKDL is working with a network of other NGOs and CSOs on the issue of kidnapping and disappearance to push for a two-fold strategy. At the executive level, the Committee is pushing to launch a process of collection and preservation of DNA samples from the families of the missing and forcibly disappeared to identify the found remains. At the legislative level, they are pushing to pass the Draft Law: for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons, which recognises the right to truth as a natural right for everyone, and includes the establishment of an independent national body with the necessary powers to carry out a detailed tracking and investigation mechanism through an acceptable scientific solution.The work of The Committee of the Families of the Kidnapped and Disappeared in Lebanon (CFKDL) began in November 1982. During the war and in the light of the sharp sectarian and geographic divisions, the families of victims of kidnapping and enforced disappearance joined forces to push the Lebanese Government to carry out an acceptable scientific investigation process to uncover the fates of all the missing and forcibly disappeared persons. CFKDL launched ‘The Right to Know’ campaign in 2000 and has been working in collaboration with a network of CSOs and NGOs. Following CFKDLs’ efforts, the Lebanese Government formed the Committee of Inquiry in the Fates of the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared (CIFMFD) in 2000 and acknowledged war crimes and the presence of mass graves across the country. CFKDL’s most important achievement to date was winning a lawsuit against the government before the State Council in March 2014, as a consequence, the government was obligated by the State Council’s decision to share with the families of victims a copy of CIFMFD’s findings report without any restriction, derogation, or exception. Before this decision, the Lebanese government had decided to keep this report confidential and considered all missing and forcibly disappeared persons killed during the civil war. In addition, prior to the investigation in 2000, the government attempted to fold this issue and offered legal procedures under Law 434, which families of victims can undertake to reclassify the status of their missing family members as legally deceased without evidence of their death or examination of the whereabouts of their remains. This Law was regarded by the CFKDL as an attempt to buy their silence, ignore their right to know the truth and dismiss the possibility of finding missing Lebanese alive in Syrian or Israeli detention centres.

From 2013 to 2015, Sustainable Democracy Centre (SDC) carried out the project ‘Windows to Participation, Doors to Peace’ consisting of two components. (1) Cinebus: a series of documentary screenings about events and people’s perceptions of the civil war and (2) The Maze: An interactive exhibition of various collected perspectives and testimonies about the civil war between 2010 and 2013. The exhibition took place in many neighbourhoods across the country (Jounieh, Barouk, Baysariyeh, Dhour Shweir, Ehden, Chweifet, Aley and Hemana) as well as in universities such as the American University of Beirut. The exhibition was organized by the youth clubs with SDC’s support and targeted the general public through local schools, municipalities and local cultural events. Many more testimonies and dialogues stemmed out of the exhibition, later transcribed by SDC and used to prompt a 3-day dialogue and discussion session on memorialization and transitional justice in Lebanon. SDC produced a publication comprehensively presenting these transcriptions.

In 2010 and 2012, Sustainable Democracy Centre (SDC) launched an intergenerational dialogue about the civil war and history in general. Facilitated by SDC’s youth clubs, the workshops targeted parents, teachers and local communities by means of a board game “Corruption” designed to explore different perceptions of historical events (i.e. French mandate, the civil war, etc.). Dialogue sessions took place in Jounieh, Chouf, Marwaniyeh and Mtein. Between 2012 and 2014, more dialogue sessions were carried out in Hadath, Chweifet, Tripoli, and Barja. In addition to students, several sessions targeted journalists, practitioners, foreign workers and artists. These sessions were followed by interviews with selected individuals and practitioners (i.e ex combatants Ziad Saab and Asaad Al-Chaftari). Finally, SDC worked in partnership with War Child Holland and Zoukak on the project ‘Peace Performance’ producing a theatrical performance by Zoukak called Mashra7 Watani (Performance Autopsy) and Jana Jana, which prompted several public discussions about the events of the civil war.

Sustainable Democracy Centre (SDC) carried out the project ‘Post-War Bridging National Solidarity’ between 2006 and 2008. The project aimed to raise awareness, break stereotypes and build bridges between the children from the north and south of Lebanon after the July War in 2006. Almost 1200 children were brought together in workshops and cultural activities in 4 camps (in the South of Lebanon Hebbarieh and Najjareieh). The overall objective was to build bridges and a sense of association between children who were not directly affected by the July War in the north and those who suffered death of family members and destruction of their homes and villages in the south.

Established in 1990, Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE) has been working on the issue of the Lebanese detained in Syria. Later, SOLIDE expanded its focus to include a more general and comprehensive issue of ‘enforced disappearance,’ which should recognise the issue of kidnapping and disappearance regardless of the assumed abductor and the location of disappearance. One of SOLIDE’s main objectives since 2006 was to treat both cases (i.e. Lebanese prisoners in Israel and Lebanese prisoners in Syria) in the same way. It also supported other NGOs and victim groups, notably the Committee of the Families of the Kidnapped and Disappeared in Lebanon (CFKDL). SOLIDE supported CFKDL by organising protests and through advocacy and awareness campaigns and by putting pressure on the Lebanese Government to legislate and execute a national body to investigate the fate of the ‘forcibly disappeared’. Over the years, SOLIDE and CFKDL have organised extensive advocacy and lobbying activities and worked with Minister of Justice, MPs, lawyers, the International Centre for Transitional Justice and other NGOs to push for the legislation and execution of the Draft Law for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons.

In 2008, the Reconciliation and Openness Meeting took place in Beit Al-Kataeb (House of Phalangists) on the anniversary of the outbreak of the civil war in Lebanon. It was attended by Lebanese and Palestinian political figures. The most prominent participants were president Amin Gemayel representing Kataeb, MP Akram Chehayeb representing the head of the "Progressive Socialist Party," MP Walid Jumblatt, Ambassador Abbas Zaki, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) representative in Lebanon, and Nadim Abdel Samad, the head of the "Democratic Left Movement". The aim of the meeting was to show unity and to confirm the end of “yesterday’s enmity and hatred” as well as the rejection of the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, since permanent resettlement in Lebanon to Palestinians means that they would have abandoned their right to return to Palestine.