CAA News Today

Saving Antiquities for Everyone (SAFE) invites CAA members to join the 2013 Candlelight Vigil for Global Heritage, marking the tenth anniversary of the looting of the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. This year, SAFE encourages individuals and institutions to light a candle and share their remembrances and thoughts on the current situation, contemplate the future, and take the opportunity to announce their related projects and programs related to preserving our shared cultural heritage. Whether you are an expert or an “ordinary” concerned citizen, SAFE wishes to hear from you.

To observe the vigil, SAFE has launched a three-month global awareness campaign, 10 Years After, from April 10 to July 1, 2013 (also on Facebook). The organization is highlighting the efforts of individuals and institutions dedicated to global-heritage preservation; the global concern of looting and the illicit antiquities trade; how public awareness can contribute to the solution; and the many ways you participated in the Global Candlelight Vigil around the world.

These comments and reflections will be posted on SAFE’s website and disseminated via social media. Furthering the group’s commitment to raising public awareness about the global concern of looting and the illicit antiquities trade, SAFE will gather these reflections in a memorial booklet as a public statement of concern and as a tribute to all those who safeguard the future of our past.

As a nonprofit dedicated to preserving cultural heritage worldwide, SAFE initiated the Global Candlelight Vigil for the Iraq museum in 2007 with Donny George, the museum’s former director, to commemorate the looting of the museum, which became the impetus for the founding of the organization. Individuals and institutions from around the world hosted and attended lectures and candle-lighting ceremonies. A video of these events was compiled to mark the fifth anniversary. In 2011, the vigil was renamed to honor the memory of George, who died that year.