The International Freedom Center-- a multi-dimensional cultural institution combining history, education and engagement-- will be an integral part of humanity's response to September 11.  Rising from the hallowed ground of the World Trade Center site, it will serve as the complement, and its building as the gateway, to the World Trade Center Memorial, playing a leading role in the Memorial’s mission to “strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom, and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance and intolerance.”

Museum Exhibition Spaces: telling freedom's story, inspiring visitors to appreciate it on a personal level by looking at the countless individual women and men around the world who have made a difference.  Spurred by hundreds of hours of consultations with nearly 100 scholars, museum experts and leading thinkers, the museum will include a “Freedom Walk”-- offering visitors a multimedia collage of some of freedom’s most inspiring moments, interwoven with deeply moving and unequalled views of the Memorial—as well as a set of galleries offering compelling and thought-provoking treatments of great freedom issues and stories from around the world, throughout the ages and up to the moment.  Temporary exhibits will draw on other historic site freedom museums around the world.

Educational and Cultural Center: sponsoring an extensive array of lectures, symposia, debates, films and other events in its theaters and public halls that will nurture a global conversation on freedom in our world today.  Much of the Center’s evening programming will draw on offerings from members of a university consortium being assembled by the Center and its partner the Aspen Institute.  Universities that have already agreed to participate include the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Cape Town; New York, Columbia and the New School Universities and the City University of New York; and Princeton and Yale Universities.  Another key source of evening programming will be a partnership between the Center and the Tribeca Film Festival and its year-round counterpart the Tribeca Film Institute.  The Center’s public spaces will also provide a venue for important community and civic events.

Civic Engagement Network: connecting visitors with opportunities to act in freedom's service in their own communities and around the world.  Opportunities for service will be provided on site, and through a virtual network, and will run the gamut of visitor interests, from symbolic gestures to life-changing commitments.  Leading NGOs will be offered outposts at the Center to reach out to its visitors.  A service advisory board now includes 35 of the leading bi-partisan and non-partisan experts on service and civic engagement from across the nation; the group will soon expand to be international in scope.

www.IFCWTC.org