In spite of March break, Tour for Humanity has a busy few days ahead. Today the tour was back in the greater Toronto area at a private day school where Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) Educator Elena taught 2 special workhops to Grade 7 students on the topic of genocide. These groups were well prepared for the topic beforehand and had been using a variety of educational materials to get ready for the presentation. 

As requested by their teacher, Elena spent a lot of time on the fundamental concepts and stages of how genocides progress. When going over the ten stages, Elena encouraged students to use their own knowledge of the Holocaust to provide examples at each stage. They knew very little about genocides that have occurred so Elena used Rwanda as a case study to examine the challenges of dealing quickly and decisively in genocidal situations in more recent years. Although most kids were quiet during the workshops they were very attentive and their teacher was very happy with the material covered. He said it complemented his lesson plan perfectly!