Today, Tour for Humanity was in Toronto at an alternative education school for adults working on their GED. Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) Educator Elena had a great day of workshops, which were broken into 6 sections of Global Perspectives on Genocide. The students brought lots of diverse perspectives and Elena was able to have a lot of in-depth discussions in a way most younger students don't have the context for yet. It was a pleasure to work with all of them!

Elena began each workshop with an overview of the Holocaust. Most students had some awareness about the persecution of Jewish people in Europe and had heard about the Nazis but a lot of them had not seen images or footage so some found the video shocking. Elena also included some photos of the use of the swastika today and the continued existence of antisemitism and white supremacist groups. Elena also spent time going into more detail on the Rwandan genocide. It was a situation that was less well known to many students and Elena spent time talking about colonialism in Africa and the situation in Rwanda leading into the violence. A lot of questions were asked about the UN and why it failed to respond so we talked about the bureaucratic nature of the structure, the failure of the UN to apply the word genocide in this context, and the fact that the UN is only as strong as the support given by individual member nations.