A group of about 20 students packed into the Tour for Humanity bus which was making a tour stop in North Bay today.
Students at Ecole secondaire Odyssee were the first ones to take into the seminar which described the ten stages of genocide in a visual workshop called “The Global Perspective.”
The workshop used the tragic holocaust story during World War II and how the anger and hate towards the Jewish people evolved as it’s prime example.
“We go through the ten stages (of genocide) one by one and at the end comes almost the most important part which is what they can do about it because the very first stage is classification, us vs them,” said Daniella Lurion, Tour for Humanity coordinator.
“That’s behaviour that we see every day, we see it in schools, we see it in communities. It’s putting people in boxes and judging someone else for who they are and that’s sort of the bottom line is to understand that this isn’t something that’s happening way back when, or somewhere else, it’s something that happens all the time.”
Tony Leblanc was one of the students who took part. The 17-year-old was shocked to hear the sheer numbers killed in the holocaust.
“It’s important that every student realized the situations because it’s almost common that because this happened in the past, it can be easily forgotten or that happened in the past so don’t worry about it, and it’s always been said if you don’t study history, you are doomed to repeat it,” said Leblanc.
The tour is supported by the North Bay Police Service.
“We enjoyed working with the Tour for Humanity organizers to bring this rich educational experience to high school students last year,” said Inspector Kirk Kelusky, North Bay Police Service.
“Teachers and students alike informed us that they were very impressed with the presentation and found it and the discussions that followed valuable. We are pleased to work in partnership with school officials, who were eager to present this to their students again this year.”
It’s the second visit by the Tour for Humanity bus in North Bay as the educational workshop will travel to Chippewa Secondary School on Tuesday, St. Joseph-Scollard Hall on Wednesday and wrap up at Algonquin on Thursday.
