Disengaged Youth
The Holocaust Centre believes that by teaching disengaged youth about the Holocaust and the consequences of racial hatred and its manifestations, young people will become less susceptible to recruitment to groups promoting racial hatred.
The Centre works with youth workers and local partners to reach disengaged youth who have been excluded from mainstream education.
A day’s programme includes a high impact film on the Holocaust and a discussion linking it with issues of personal responsibility, a guided tour of the Memorial Museum and Memorial Gardens and a talk by a survivor of the Holocaust.
The group is invited to return to the Holocaust Centre after 6 months to reassess the lessons learnt, develop knowledge and present work plans for their own communities.
The Centre aims to inspire and empower disengaged young people to play a positive role in their communities.
For more information, please click here
Tackling gun and knife crime
The Holocaust Centre uses highly visual resource materials to illustrate parallels between the dehumanisation inherent in gang mentality and the ideologies of the perpetrators of genocide and the Holocaust. The programme aims to steer young people at risk of involvement in gun and knife crime away from violent crime and gang mentality.
The Centre has worked with Supporting Communities and Nottingham City Council to deliver a Gun and Knife Crime Programme in Nottingham. The programme includes a session exploring why people join violent exclusionary groups, their decisions and the impact of those decisions on others and a question and answer session with a survivor of the Rwandan genocide aimed at developing empathy for victims of violence.
For more information, please click here
Testimonials from Starfish Alliance, June 2009
The Starfish Alliance is a new initiative centred on the governments PVE strategy, and consists of working with hard to reach young people aged 14-17 who are serving sentences within Hassockfield Secure Training Centre based in the North of England (Consett, Durham). HSTC cares for up to 60 males and females aged 12-17. They are either awaiting trial or serving sentences and include some of the most damaged and difficult young people in the country. Whilst in the care of HSTC they are helped to address issues which may underlie their offending, such as alcohol or drug abuse. They are also offered education according to the National Curriculum.
The Starfish Project consists of delivering a series of workshops around issues such as racism, violence, extremism, stereotypes, etc. and has allowed us the opportunity to work with a wide range of organisations around the country. The work that we are delivering provides the young people a chance to learn about these serious issues as well as allow them to meet a diverse range of people from different backgrounds and cultures. Our hope is to reach these young people through the activities in the programme and to help dispel the negative and prejudiced belief systems that they may hold. The long term objective is to help steer these young people away from a harmful or potentially violent path and instead towards a safe, positive and successful future, by equipping them with the knowledge to make the right choices in the future.
We have recently worked with the Holocaust Centre to deliver their first of five workshops at Hassockfield STC this year, and I personally had the privilege of meeting Manoj Barot, Andy Sykes and Rudy Oppenheimer. The delivery of the workshop was brilliant and was received very well by the young people who were engrossed by the moving and powerful testimony of Rudy Oppenheimer who spoke about his personal experiences during the Holocaust. Andy Sykes then shifted the focus to extremism and the issues that are faced today in Britain by young people who may be susceptible to extreme views and the dangers of these views. Both Andy’s and Rudy’s testimonials resonated with the young people and this was reflected in the post session interviews they participated in. The entire session was facilitated and linked together by the brilliant Manoj Barot, who was able to capture the attention and respect of these young people immediately with his introductions, and maintained this throughout with his easily approachable nature. The overall session time was 2 ∏ hours, and despite previous activity workshops not lasting more than an hour, it didn’t lose the attention or interest of the young people in attendance which I feel was achieved by the very engaging delivery of the workshop.
I would like to thank the Holocaust Centre for their participation in the programme as they are a key part of the Starfish Alliance, as well as, Manoj Barot, Rudy Oppenheimer and Andy Sykes for their time and work. I am looking forward to working with them again in future workshops, and hope that we are able to develop this pilot initiative into a permanent programme and build a long lasting relationship with the Holocaust Centre.
Ash Ali
EMTEP
Of the Berlin street: “At this point, I felt things really clicked into place and the children began to understand day-to-day life for Jews.” The carriage was engaging and poignant; children really got to see what happened in reality, but in a sensitive way.” “The home was atmospheric and children got a real feel for life in Germany in the 1930s.”
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