Tehran Peace Museum

The Idea of founding TPM began with a conversation between the founders of the Tehran-based Society for Chemical Weapons Victims Support (SCWVS) and a coordinator for the International Network of Museums for Peace in 2005. This, as well as a visit to Hiroshima, Japan by members of SCWVS, fed into the desire for a peace museum in Tehran. It was in Hiroshima where the suffering from atomic arms was able to convert most powerfully into a drive for peace manifested via a peace museum. This ability to use the intense suffering of war to highlight the need for peace made the museum’s founders realize Iran’s parallel suffering from chemical arms and the need for a parallel drive for peace. Currently housed in a building donated by the municipality of Tehran within the historic City Park, the Tehran Peace Museum is as much an interactive peace center as a museum. It coordinates a peace education program that holds workshops and hosts conferences on the culture of peace, reconciliation, international humanitarian law,disarmament, and peace advocacy. additionally, the museum houses a documentary studio that provides a workplace wherein the individual stories of victims of warfare can be captured and archived for the historical record.