On May 10 and 11, the international student conference “Young European Ambassadors for Remembrance and Active Citizenship” took place, bringing together high school students from 15 European countries.
The event was organized by TOLI – The Olga Lengyel Institute for Holocaust Studies and Human Rights and a consortium of European organizations, including the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania.
During the conference, the students presented projects developed together with their classmates and with the support of their teachers within the framework of the TOLI Impact Grant Programme, initiatives that promote local educational activities on memory, dialogue and human rights.
Among the projects presented: Time Maps (Lithuania), Multicultural Borderland (Poland), What Would We Miss (Serbia), Never Again! (Romania), The Memory Around Us (Italy), and The Story of a Boy (Croatia).
On both days, four students who participated in the training on online manifestations of hate speech – organized by TOLI in collaboration the Osservatorio sull’Antisemitismo of CDEC Foundation – also spoke, sharing the results of their monitoring work on anti-Semitism and hate speech online.
The conference also included a session on media literacy education led by Timea Serb, and ended with the intense testimony of Ariele Schwartz, a third-generation survivor, who told the story of her grandfather Harry.
All the speeches were of the highest level and reminded us how young people can be protagonists in promoting memory and rights. A heartfelt thanks to all the students and teachers who participated with commitment and passion!
The event was organized as part of the CARE project – Combating Holocaust Denial and Distortion through Active Citizenship, Remembrance, and Education, co-financed by the European Union under the CERV – European Remembrance program.
