In the lead up to National Hate Crime Awareness Week, Blackburn Central High School held a Hate Crime focused PSHE day for all members of KS3. As part of this excellent initiative, Remembering Srebrenica’s Education Manager, Rebecca Heron, was invited to deliver workshops to 150 year 9 students. After learning about the events of Srebrenica in 1995 students then participated in a workshop on the ‘Ten stages of Genocide’, as proposed by Gregory Stanton.
Using this model as a structure, students discussed the behaviours that happen in a society in the lead up to a genocide including discrimination, dehumanisation and persecution. To conclude, students were asked to discuss what they could do to build a united community.
All pupils contributed excellent suggestions from helping their neighbours in times of need to holding community fun days to bring all members of their community together. It was an honour to be part of such an important initiative which included speakers from the Anne Frank Trust, Victim Support, Victims Voice and ARC (Asylum and Refugee Community).
The image below shows the words students used in their suggestions for building a united community according to frequency (the most frequently used are the largest):
