Late last night, we received an email from Mahmoud Hashim, an Egyptian living in Toronto. Like us, he has watched with horror as peaceful demonstrators have been killed in the violence in Egypt. He told us about the growing movement to help document the martyrs losing their lives in the streets and pointed us to a collaborative Google Doc that is being circulated around the world to aid the process. Mahmoud wrote "I realized then that the least we can do is not forget these brave young men and women, and to honor them by letting the whole nation know who they were" He then asked us for a favor: Could we take the data being collected from observers in Egypt and make a more visually compelling website. He wanted us to "create a page that will help young people honor the memory of those heroes and for the whole world to see and then dive deeper."
This email came at the very end of a long day, but we knew what we had to do. We rolled up our sleeves and stayed up late into the evening creating a special online memorial to the Egyptian martyrs. A place to remember their sacrifices and know that these are not just numbers. We hope that this can be a place that shows the world what is happening and helps a little to remember each of the lives lost that they might not be wasted and that the violence may end. You can see it at 1000Memories.com/egypt.
If you have any information about someone killed in Egypt, we have linked our site
to the Google Doc that has been used to record deaths. We are totally committed to continually updating our memorial as the Google Doc is updated. We currently have 32 names, but know there are hundreds more still undocumented.
This is exactly why we started 1000Memories in the first place: to help the living pay tribute and remember the ones we admire and love. We're glad to have an opportunity to do our part.