The second part of Badna Na’ref focused on the victims of disappearances and was led by Act for the Disappeared. It targeted university students who tried to find families and neighbours of victims of disappearances using the same methodology. The testimonies are available at ICTJ, Center for the Study of the Modern Arab World (CEMAM-USJ) and UMAM Documentation &Resarch’s archive for public use by researchers.

In 2010, the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) launched the project ‘Badna Na’ref’ (We want to know) aiming to increase political and societal will towards dealing with the legacy of the past, to ensure non-repetition and to recognise the right to know the truth. The first phase of Badna Na’ref focused on encouraging intergenerational debate about the legacy of violence in Lebanon. ICTJ targeted youth groups in 12 schools and provided them with training on oral history methodology. ICTJ prepared an interview questionnaire and trained students on how to use it to collect testimonies from members of their families about their experiences in the civil war.

In 2015, Institut Francais du Proche-Orient (IFPO) in Beirut held a series of conferences under the title ‘Colloque: New Perspectives on Lebanon at War’. The programme consisted of seminars, exhibitions, film screenings and debates, bringing together academics, practitioners, journalists and artists to discuss different approaches to deal with the legacy of the civil wars and violence in Lebanon. The discussions focused on issues such as disappearance, displacement, history education and the transmission of memories.

“Liban, Mémoires de Guerre: Pratiques, Traces et Usages” is a 4-year multidisciplinary research programme aiming to understand memory, its practices, dodges and strategies in the social reconstruction process in the civil war context. The research examined various academic and artistic productions in action seeking to identify the modalities of expression of individual and collective memories in Lebanon since 1975. The programme started in 2007 and had been carried out in partnership with Saint Joseph University, Lebanese University and University of Balamand.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) works with local authorities, forensic institutions and practitioners to empower the capacity of local stake holders to provide quality post-mortem analysis and information through different training opportunities, hands-on coaching and material support where needed. The objective is to empower local forensic capacity to respond to emergency mass casualty events as well as to increase the ability to cope with persons missing from the civil war. Projects include providing continued training opportunities within Lebanon and abroad for forensic specialists, as well as ensuring appropriate storage and analytical infrastructure and equipment for local medico-legal structures.

The objective of this project is to provide support to families of persons who went missing during the armed conflicts in Lebanon since 1975 through support group sessions and through collaboration with local NGOs to meet their needs (health, legal, psychosocial, administrative etc.) identified in the Family Needs Assessment conducted in 2011-2012. ICRC implemented this project in Saida district in 2014 and is expanding to Baabda and other districts in 2016.

This description doesn't match the initiativeThe handbook aims to teach youths from the age of 14 that there exist various interpretations of history in Lebanon. It seeks to help them accept the existence of divergent views on the Civil War. Without claiming to know what is right or wrong, it confronts students with memories from ‘the other side’, for instance by mothers, grandparents or ex-soldiers, and equips them with questions to test their own views and knowledge on the Civil War.

In 2012, the ICRC started collecting information, where available, on people unaccounted for prior to their disappearance. To this end, it initiated thorough interviews with families of missing persons across the country. Every month, ICRC representatives conduct 40 such interviews. To date, about 2,000 interviews have been completed. The data gathered, and which are to be handed over to the future national commission, should significantly facilitate the commission's work to clarify the fate of missing persons and to provide answers to their families.

In January 2014, Impunity Watch, in partnership with the Sustainable Democracy Centre (SDC), organised an interactive workshop on the challenges of memorialisation in Lebanon. The workshop targeted victims, civil society and youth representatives of political parties focusing on discussing the possibility of a collective memorialization process that accepts dialogue on multiple narratives. Impunity Watch understands collective memorialisation as a method of seeking common ground about the past and mutual respect.

The Palestinian Oral History Archive is an archival collection that contains more than 1,000 hours of testimonies with first generation Palestinians and other Palestinian communities in Lebanon The project will digitize, index, catalog, preserve, and provide access to the material through the creation of a state-of the art digital platform. It aims to expand and include additional oral history collections documenting varied aspects of the Palestinian experience in Lebanon and the region. The project is being completed in partnership with the AUB Libraries, the Nakba Archive and the Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts (AL-JANA).