"Each time a person stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others... he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope...
​that can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance."
​
-— Robert F. Kennedy

To Repair the World: Becoming a
​Human Rights Defender

Whether you are teaching about the Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the oppression of the African American slave trade, the struggles of Native Americans to maintain their culture and land, or the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century, it is important that your students examine role models from a variety of historical situations. In an age of standardized testing and data-driven instruction, it is important that we as educators provide examples of role models who saw injustice and resisted it, inspiring our students to do the same in their communities, nation, and world. 

Step 1: Hook
Begin by showing your students the video "Elie Wiesel, Another Look at Genocide" on left (4:22), a Grand Prize winner of the Speak Truth to Power video contest. 

Have your students break up into groups of 3-5. Write on the board "What would be needed to resist an oppressive regime?" and ask your students to brainstorm the most important needs they identify. After five minutes of brainstorming, have one student from each group write their top 5 answers on the board. Follow this activity with a brief discussion, asking why they picked their choices and how they prioritized their needs. Next, write on the board "Factors that would deter active resistance." In their groups, have the students brainstorm again for 5 minutes and write their answers on the board. Follow up with another brief discussion, asking how one could use the answers from the first list to counter the challenges posed from the second list? Can they think of any examples throughout history of groups or individuals using these methods? 

Step 2: Videos and Other Teacher Resources
Follow up your discussion with the TedTalk on the left, "How to topple an oppressive regime" by Srdja Popovic, a political activist who led the nonviolent movement that took down Serbian dictator Milosevic in 2000 (12:00).

​The Armenians of Turkey lost millions of innocent civilians to genocide, and saw millions more forced to flee into exile during the early twentieth century. Here is a moving personal account of that time in a 25-minute video that draws upon courage, family, and hope.  My Mother's Voice (password: momsvoice), and guide for teachers.  

We created a PowerPoint that provides a background about the 8 Stages of Genocide. We further compiled sets of editable resources about several case studies that will be used in the activity in the next section. Each set of resources includes several primarily and secondary sources and features human rights defenders for each atrocity. The case studies include: Native Americans, American slavery, the Holocaust, Rwanda, Bosnia, Armenia, and Darfur. 

To provide more background on each of the case studies, you can also show one of these videos about each of the topics;

Step 3: Standards-Based Activity

PictureJean Pierre Karenzi (Perpetrator) & Viviane Nyiramana (Survivor) -Portraits of Reconciliation, New York Times
Print out the resources for the case studies you wish to use (linked in the above section). Set up stations around your classroom for each case study. Divide students into groups of 5 for each station. Have your students divide up the documents from the case study among their group and read their assigned documents. We have created a worksheet that connects each case study to the material discussed in the Power Point about the 8 Stages of Genocide. The front side of the worksheet asks students to evaluate their documents and to then discuss their findings within their group. The back side of the worksheet asks students to write an essay about a human rights defender from their case study. 

Step 4: What can students do?

Picture
Have your students start a chapter of STAND, the student led movement to end mass atrocities. Have your students support the Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act (2016) by sending a message to your senator. Ask your students to sign the Pledge Against Genocide and mail their signed pledges to the International Alliance to End Genocide.  

Several organizations specifically target the survivors of these atrocities and your students can further take action for a specific group, especially among the more contemporary situations. Register your class for From Kids to Kids- an informal pen-pal project with students in Darfur organized by the Darfur Peace Fund. 


Have your students visit the visual and oral histories at the University of Southern California’s Shoah Foundation, documenting the Holocaust, the Cambodia Genocide, Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda, the Armenian Genocide, the Guatemalan Genocide, the Nanjing Massacre, Anti-Rohingya Mass Violence, Northern Syria, and Contemporary Anti-Semitism. ​

Additional Resources

AFT Resources