ABOUT THE EMPTY CHAIR

By Hedda Krausz Sjögren and Jonas Jarl

The Empty Chair is a documentary play and a project about the ten human rights activists who received the Per Anger Prize, an international prize established by the Swedish government to promote initiatives supporting human rights and democracy. The laureates are activists from all over the world who work with their lives at stake.

The play was written in 2014 by Hedda Krausz Sjögren and Jonas Jarl on behalf of the Forum for Living History.

The project raises questions about the difficulties today’s human rights activists meet, what motivates them and how more people can get involved in work for the equal rights. In 2015 The Empty Chair was carried out as a pilot project in 12 primary and secondary schools in Sweden to raise the issues of democracy, activism and civic courage. The project is a collaboration between Hedda Production, Living History Forum and the Africa Groups and implemented with the support of the Swedish Inheritance Fund.

The project aims to strengthen youth participation and confidence in democratic values and practices as an integral part of the entire project; from the knowledge of the struggle for human rights around the world for the concrete work in school after school to reinforce the feeling that it is possible to influence.

AVAILABLE IN

• Arabic – ““المقعد الفارغ “
• English – “The Empty Chair”
• Spanish – “La Silla Vacía“
• Swedish – “Den Tomma Stolen” (Original)