Students at Bedminster Down School presented findings and stories to their school colleagues this week to raise awareness for Genocide Awareness Week.
To help mark the UN’s International Day of Commemoration on Thursday 9 December the school’s history department joined forces with eight other schools across the country to help produce a newspaper that tells powerful stories of genocide around the world. All of the work took place in a special new lunchtime club, set up by the history department.
The newspaper, with a contribution from Bedminster Down on Sokphal Din, a survivor of the genocide in Cambodia, is now being distributed to MPs and available for schools to use as a learning resource and includes articles from survivors, journalists, politicians and historians.
It is part of a the ‘Genocideknowmore’ campaign to increase and improve understanding of genocide among young people in the face of reoccurring genocides since the second world war.
The Genocide Awareness project meets every Thursday lunchtime and is led by Head of History Caroline West. She said:
“It’s shocking that most young people have very little knowledge or understanding of genocides after the Holocaust. Since then, genocides in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and then Darfur have shown that the world has not learned.
“Our students are very keen to share their learning and I’m delighted that we’re one of few schools in the country who are making sure that more people understand the experiences of survivors and understand why genocides happen.”