Today was the first day for Tour for Humanity at schools in the Timmins area. The organizing teacher expressed how thankful she was that we were able to visit her school and community: “I so appreciate you coming to give our students this opportunity. My biggest priority as an educator is teaching my students to be global citizens of the world who will one day create positive change, and your program is a great way to educate them.” Her comments speak to the impact that Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) programs are having in these small remote communities. 

FSWC Educator Daniella presented 4 Simon’s Story workshops on the bus and saw all of the school’s Grades 3-6 students. Once again students were quite familiar with Hitler, and when Daniella asked the classes what they knew about him, even some of the Grade 3s told her that “Hitler killed Jewish people.” Daniella, of course, discussed the Holocaust, but she found that the groups were not very aware of global events. This was especially evident when Daniella asked them about what they thought her cultural background was. Even as high as Grade 5, students had trouble naming other counties around the world.

FSWC also provided workshops for Grades 7-8 students at a public school in Guelph. FSWC Educator Elena presented 4 sessions of our Roots of Hate and Intolerance workshop and the students were very well prepared. The teacher who coordinated our visit clearly makes human rights education a major priority. Her classroom was decorated with projects on Holocaust literature each student had prepared. They also had an entire wall dedicated to different human rights and freedoms that we all enjoy. Elena also talked about the roots of intolerance in Canadian history. She described the earliest years of Canada, originally  home to many different Indigenous groups who settled in the Americas thousands of years ago and the fact that European explorers came with many of their own ideas about power and land ownership. Initially there was a lot of sharing between cultures and Native peoples actually helped early settlers survive the harsh climate. But racism became an easy way to justify war and oppression of Native groups as Europeans expanded and made permanent settlements. Elena also talked about hate crimes in Canada today and had a great conversation about what might cause young people to commit these types of crimes.