Hundreds of young people gather to launch Ambassador Programme
Professor Yehuda Bauer addresses the Ambassador Conference
Over 500 young people from across the UK gathered on Monday 8th July at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre to launch the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Ambassador Programme by taking part in a landmark educational conference about the Holocaust.
The participants heard lectures from a series of world renowned historians including Professors Yehuda Bauer, Richard Overy, and David Ceserani as well as high profile speakers including BBC Political Editor, Nick Robinson and Director of civil liberties charity, Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti CBE.
The Conference launched the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Ambassador Programme, which is designed to leave participants with a more detailed historical knowledge of what happened during the Holocaust and provide practical advice on how to share this information with their peers and communities. Ambassadors are young people who have taken part in the Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz Project, which includes a visit to the former Nazi death and concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Ambassador Programme is headed by Lord Browne of Madingley, the former Chief Executive of BP.
Following the conference, on the evening of the 8th July, the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Regional Ambassadors gathered with MPs, peers and supporters at a reception hosted by the Rt. Hon John Bercow MP, Speaker of the House of Commons, at the Speaker’s State Rooms in the House of Commons. The Regional Ambassadors were joined by nearly 200 guests including Holocaust survivors and Parliamentarians.
The following day, Tuesday 9th July, the Regional Ambassadors gathered in the House of Lords, where a steering panel, chaired by Lord Browne of Madingley, offered advice and mentoring to the Regional Ambassadors, discussing why and how we remember the Holocaust and how we can communicate its relevance in contemporary British society. Other members of the panel included Doreen Lawrence OBE and Professor Yehuda Bauer, one of the world’s foremost historians on the Holocaust.