December 2025 

The REstART Festival wrapped up its second edition marking the 25th anniversary of the European Forum for Restorative Justice! The Festival presented films, media art works, stage performances, exhibitions, workshops and other forms of art on various locations from art houses, through a prison in Leuven to the European Parliament in two cities: Leuven and Brussels from the 5th-9th of December. The event welcomed an international audience of over 330 participants, offering 17 events across 6 days and 8 venues. Its success was made possible thanks to the support of 6 funders, 4 local partners, 5 staff members, 3 interns, 14 hosts (and their families), and around 30 volunteers - full acknowledgements can be found on the Festival’s page under Acknowledgements! Among the featured sessions were contributions from the Government of Navarra (La Mirada del Otro), Rondine Citadella della Pace (Dissonanze in Accordo), JSPSS - Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and JFGE - Japan Fund for Global Environment (Victim’s Voices of a Pollution). A heartfelt thank you to everyone who made this edition of REstART so memorable - your participation continues to advance the mission of demonstrating the impact of the intersection of art and justice.

Stay tuned for the 2030 edition! 

We are excited to announce that on the 10th of December, International Day of Human Rights, we relaunched the Manifesto for Restorative Justice and Human Rights, now supported by over 180 organisational and individual signatories. You can make a difference too! Join us by reading, signing and sharing the Manifesto if you share our vision that access to restorative justice should recognised universally as both a means to uphold human rights and an inherent part of them. 

The Manifesto was accompanied by the Restorative Justice and Human Rights Magazine, a new publication that presents the importance of restorative justice in a clear and accessible way. It includes personal stories from participants, insights from experts, policy makers, and human rights specialists, all explaining why restorative justice should be universally accessible.

Our campaign for recognising restorative justice in the human rights framework will continue in 2026. Look out for updates and join us in spreading this important call! 

The National Center on Restorative Justice (NCORJ) invites proposals for a special issue of The International Journal of Restorative Justice, focused on the rapidly growing field of restorative justice education in higher education, where 93% of 68 surveyed campuses (Bussu & Karp, 2025) now offer restorative justice coursework across disciplines such as criminal justice, law, peace studies, education, and social work. The issue seeks concise proposals examining how restorative justice is, or should be, taught across diverse academic fields (including Tribal Colleges, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), community colleges, and four-year institutions), with attention to pedagogical approaches, curriculum design, and the impact of restorative justice education on student learning, practitioner preparation, and employability. 

Selected authors will join a 90-minute kickoff session and a virtual symposium to discuss drafts and build coherence for the issue (publication remains subject to peer review). Proposals should outline the paper’s focus, methodology, scholarly contribution, and practical applications, and should be accompanied by a CV for each author. Submissions are due on the 1st of February 2026, with acceptance notifications issued by the 28th of February 2026.

The 13th International Conference of the European Forum for Restorative Justice will explore how restorative justice can drive personal transformation and broader social change. The conference will examine how its impact can be understood, measured, and made visible, from individual experiences to systemic developments across criminal justice, education and communities. A central focus will be on how restorative justice empowers individuals, how that empowerment can drive wider social transformation, and how such change can be recognised in ways that are respectful, inclusive, and credible, influencing practice, policy, and public understanding.

Join us in Poznań, Poland, from the 11th-13th of June 2026, to connect voices, evidence, and action, and be part of shaping restorative justice and its ripple effects for lasting societal impact. On the day before the conference (10th June) 2 parallel pre-conference courses will take place. Registration for the conference and pre-conference training will open in the next weeks (early 2026), so keep an eye out! The conference will be hosted at SWPS University. The draft schedule, target audience details, and local host information is available on our website.

Follow the conversation on social media: #EFRJconference #EFRJ2026 #Poznań

📍Poznań (Poland), 11th-13th June 2026 

If you log in to our website you will now see an overview of information linked to your account (under "My Account"). EFRJ members can now check their membership status on this page and find a link to directly renew it, should it be overdue. Similarly, if you are not a member yet, you will be able to find the link that will allow you to join our community as an individual or an organisational member. You will also find an overview of the different payments you previously made for the organisation (for example event registration fees) and the organisations you are linked to in our database. This matters because staff of our organisational members also benefit from discounts of our event registration fees, and this is applied automatically once the relation between the individual and the organisation is marked in our database (and they are logged in on the website). If you find missing or inaccurate information about yourself, get in touch with us! 

Finally our new Donate page is active. Individual donations are vital for the organisation, and help us to achieve our goals through creating inspiring, inclusive and accessible events, publications  and campaigns! So we invite you to support our work by donating to us and encourage others to do so as well. 

In the spirit of the holiday season, where community is at the heart of it, one East London home takes the meaning of togetherness to dazzling new heights as each year, a regular home on Pettits Lane in Romford transforms into its very own Winter Wonderland. For more than a decade, the Grange family’s walk-through Christmas LED display, featuring light-up igloos, a Christmas tree taller than the house itself, and Santa with his sleigh suspended in mid-air, has welcomed passersby to wander through a scene that rivals professional light exhibits. Beyond its festive charm, the display serves a greater purpose: raising money for local charities, with visitors invited to contribute to donation buckets placed throughout. In 2024, the display raised more than £10,000 for Lime Academy Ravensbourne, a local special needs school, which the money will be raised for again this year. With its growing popularity, the 2025 display is bigger than ever, including an official event on the 6th of December, where visitors can meet the family behind the lights and enjoy festive music and refreshments to celebrate the community that has been built around shared joy and a commitment to supporting meaningful causes. From Romford to the world, this cherished tradition is a reminder of the many ways a community can come together to make an extraordinary impact.

In our newsflashes we share the most interesting and relevant updated about our work and collect information from our members and other individuals and/or organisations working in related fields. Information includes news, local activities, international events, publications, inspiring talks or projects, and much more, taking place in Europe and beyond. Please contact us if you have any comments or any news you would like us to share in our future editions. You can enjoy the previous editions of the EFRJ Newsflashes here. Feel free to forward them to friends or colleagues and invite them to sign up on the EFRJ website!