The 1947 Partition of India caused the largest refugee crisis in recorded history. Over 14 million people migrated and 1-3 million perished. Plagued by the legacy of Partition, political relations between India and Pakistan remain on the brink of war.
Not enough people know of this event or the history of colonial rule that precipitated it. 72 years later, returning home remains virtually impossible for millions of refugees.
What if we could take them back?
Project Dastaan reconnects refugees with their ancestral homes and communities, using film and virtual reality technology to help communicate their stories to the world.
Our Social Impact program uses an extensive volunteer network to track down the childhood homes and villages of our witnesses. Backed by the South Asia programme at Oxford Univesity, we use VR headsets to give these migrants, who are often over 80 years old, a virtual tour of their childhood towns and homes. We show them the people and places they most want to see again – the chaotic sounds of a long-forgotten Sindhi bazaar, the serenity of a Punjabi pind, the Baul harmonies echoing through an ancient Bengali gaon.
For example… meet Khalid Rai:
Our feature documentary, The Lost Migration, will physically take a Partition refugee back to their childhood home, combining documentary-style storytelling with Verite art film elements, whilst recounting various migrations and the socio-religious politics which caused them.
The Project is ambitious, life-changing and compassionate…
We work in three different countries, produce content in all the local languages we encounter, everyone on the team is currently is a volunteer, and we provide our skills as a free service to Partition survivors who want to reconnect with their childhood homes.
We are looking for financial support to sustain our peace-making efforts, to create empathy between warring nations, and find common stories of peace and harmony.
One year ago, two of our founders sat down over a coffee and exchanged their grandparents’ stories of Partition. They realised that their grandparents had travelled almost identical journeys in opposite directions. Both their grandparents yearned to go back home. But due to wars, old age and trauma there were still too many barriers for either to return. What if there was a way back?
Thus Sparsh, Saadia, Sam and Ameena, co-founders of Project Dastaan, came up with the crazy plan of a making sure every partition survivor who they could find, would go home again… whether through virtual reality, video calls to locals who still remember them, or even an actual physical return however difficult.
By donating to our cause
We are a group of young filmmakers, journalists and artists from all over the world!
CEO: Sparsh Ahuja is a digital artist and filmmaker. Sparsh graduated as a FitzRandolph Scholar in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford, where he served as president of the Oxford Hindu Society. He was the youngest-ever recipient of the CatchLight Fellowship in 2019 and was nominated as a Research Affiliate for the University of Oxford’s Contemporary South Asian Studies Program.
Cofounder: Sam Dalrymple is a photojournalist and producer. He graduated from Oxford University with a Sanskrit and Persian Scholarship, where he co-founded the Silk Road Society. Sam has been published in The New York Times and Conde Nast Traveller and has worked with BBC Radio 4, The Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Turquoise Mountain and Vagaband across 8 countries.
Cofounder: Saadia Gardezi is a journalist and cartoonist and has worked as the Op-Ed editor for The Nation, one of Pakistan’s leading daily newspapers. She graduated as an M.Phil scholar in South Asian Studies and was awarded the Weidenfeld-Hoffman Leadership Scholarship at Oxford University.
The Last Migration director: Shahbano Farid is the North America Operations lead for Project Dastaan and the Director of The Lost Migration. As a Creative at VICE Media she’s worked with brands such as Timberland, Cadillac, Adidas and Nike to create culturally relevant and inspiring branded content. With a passion for storytelling and a background in various mediums in visual art, her work sets out to share personal narratives -specifically those of South Asian – in an artistic and engaging way.
Child of Empire director: Erfan Saadati has been a leader in immersive media for five years. An award-winning storyteller, he has been featured at Sheffield Doc Fest, IDFA and Future of StoryTelling. His environmental documentary, Growing a World Wonder, was showcased by the UN at the COP21 conference to heads of state. In 2016 he directed a documentary following a Sudanese refugee, Home: Aamir, which won the “Grand Jury Prize” at Encounters Festival, as well as the “Best Director and Journalistic Achievement Jury Prize” at the Social Impact Media Awards (SIMA).
Each story costs £360– this price includes equipment, interviewing the migrants, two days of on-location tracking and filming as well as editing and post-processing.
Join us and together, we can take the first 35 refugees back home and seed fund the documentary. Once we reach our goal, any additional funds we receive will be used to take even more refugees back. Falling short of our goal will only impact the number of migrants we can take back. Every pound or dollar raised from this crowdfunder will directly benefit partition migrants.
And much more….
Project Dastaan has been featured on Nikkei, BBC Radio, Elle, Mashable, Dawn, Firstpost, Asian Age, The Week, Eastern Eye, Indus News and Mid-Day and we are advised and trained by some of the top experts in VR film, advocacy and South Asian history.
With Kickstarter, if we don’t meet the minimum, we get nothing, so to be safe, I set my goal at the lowest possible number needed to continue. 30,000 will allow us to take all 75 refugees home. Since last year, we have made significant financial sacrifices to create Project Dastaan, and most of the work done so far has been done at our own expense. PLEASE, DON’T be discouraged to pledge just because we hit my goal. Many other Kickstarter projects go over their funding goal because people believe in them & what they will do. If YOU believe in us and the continued impact of Project Dastaan, don’t hesitate! We will greatly appreciate all the *extra* help we can get!