The Janusz Korczak Association of Canada is happy to announce the recent opening of the Korczak Digital Archive, the first openly-accessible online repository honoring the legacy of the esteemed Dr. Janusz Korczak. The archive has been a work in progress since 2017 and it will continue to evolve over time, but as of October it is fully functional and ready to serve as a global hub for scholars and followers of Dr. Korczak. The archive will allow access to Dr. Korczak’s work in an unprecedented way, thereby bringing his incredible legacy to bear on the problems and challenges of the 21st century. The archive is a unique online resource, making accessible for the first time in a single collection a wide range of Janusz Korczak’s personal writings and documents, as well as the writings of others on the subject of his life, activities and creative output, that had previously been scattered in archives and collections around the world. The repository is bilingual – available in both English and Polish.
Dr. Janusz Korczak is universally respected as a doctor, activist and author, but above all a mentor and spokesman for children’s rights. His innovative educational system and way of raising children in the spirit of mutual respect, partnership and self-governance is to this very day an inspiration for many teachers, pedagogues, paediatricians, civic activists and those involved in championing children’s rights. Korczak’s vision of universal children’s rights is the foundation for the 1989 United Nations Convention on this subject. Dr. Korczak was for decades an orphanage director, where he put his pedagogical philosophy into practice. He died, as he lived, alongside his children, at the hands of the Nazis in the Treblinka concentration camp in 1942.
In 2017 the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada conceived of the idea of the Korczak Digital Archive and together with a number of other organizations formed the Janusz Korczak Repository Consortium to execute the project over the past three years. The Archive was the result of invaluable contributions from the Consortium members, including the Department of History at the University of Warsaw (along with the KLIO Foundation), the Digital Competence Center at the University of Warsaw, the Korczak Foundation and the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, without all of which the vision could never have become a reality.
We warmly invite you to visit the archive and to watch a short 3 minute video, created by the consortium, that provides an overview of the archive and its offerings.
The consortium intends for the repository of knowledge about Dr. Korczak’s work and ideas to become the springboard to better integrate it into contemporary legal, social and pedagogical theories and to make it the basis for cooperation among academics, educators, child welfare workers, researchers, physicians, lawyers, children’s rights activists, parents and guardians.
All this is merely the beginning. The maintenance and development of the Repository, including the expanding of its collections, demands the involvement of various institutions, associations and experts from all around the world. The project can be supported in a range of ways: by sharing knowledge and experience, offering privately owned collections or providing financial resources to cover the cost of maintaining our online resource.
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