“Our commitment must be to remember the victims who perished, respect the survivors still with us, and reaffirm humanity's common aspiration for mutual understanding and justice.”
-- Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust
TernYpe International Roma Youth Network
01.08.2016
In 2014, the IHRA funded a two-year educational project by TernYpe International Roma Youth Network to support Roma and youth organizations in developing their commemorative events and activities related to the genocide of the Roma.
TernYpe unites different Roma youth organizations from Albania, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, Slovakia, Spain, Romania and Poland. The network creates space for young people to become active citizens through empowerment, mobilization and self- organization, strengthening trust, and mutual respect between Roma and non-Roma youth.
The first part of the IHRA-funded project consisted of creating an interactive online platform www.2august.eu and an “educational suitcase” of activities and materials for planning and carrying out Holocaust Memorial Days. Through a ‘’Blog’’ section the online platform allows visitors to upload stories, videos and images and raises awareness of remembrance events and action days related to the genocide of the Roma.
The second stage of the project was an international conference “Dikh he na bister” (Look back and don't forget) held in Krakow on 31 July 2014 which brought together 1000 young Roma and non-Roma participants and about 70 experts, stakeholders, decision-makers and young multipliers to review new approaches and materials and discuss the quality of the proposed educational tools and online platform. At the event, the youth – as scholars, educators, multipliers and activists – were at the heart of discussions, recognizing the strength and potential of youth agency. The book “Education for Remembrance of the Roma Genocide” is a result of this exchange.
Following the conference, a seminar was held in Berlin in December 2014 which gathered 40 representatives of partner organizations, educational multipliers and youth activists in order to share experiences and practices, to work on the development of educational methods, tools and strategies, and to develop and coordinate future educational and advocacy action.
In 2016 a training course was held in Heidelberg in March 2016, aimed at building the capacity of Roma and non-Roma educators and youth leaders, as well as their youth organizations in their work on remembrance, Holocaust and human rights education in order to challenge stereotypes, anti-Gypsyism and racism drawing from the methods developed at the conference in 2014.
The IHRA Grant Programme aims to strengthen the political commitment of governments in order to ensure future generations will understand the causes of the Holocaust and reflect upon its consequences with a view to preventing genocide, ethnic cleansing, racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia. The TernYpe project was funded with the aim of promoting the development of strategies for Holocaust Memorial Days in a way that injects substance, real meaning and educational value into these events.
The IHRA Grant Programme runs each year from September to January and in 2015 the IHRA Grant Programme awarded 18 grants. Information about criteria and applying for grants can be found on the IHRA website.
Image: Participants in the seminar “Dikh he Na Bister” at the youth commemoration at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and Memorial in 2014. Courtesy of TernYpe