Goodwin Youth Leadership Conference

By Symone Yancey

This year, Sterling High School was able to host the Goodwin Youth Leadership Conference on the Holocaust, Genocide, and 21^st century Human Rights violations. This was an event in which students from Sterling High School and St. Joseph High School in Hammonton were able to discuss possible resolutions that would work to encourage tolerance in their environment. As a participant in this conference, I can say that it was very educational and it taught me a lot about the different instances of genocide around the world. 

Students discuss the issues.

We began our research weeks in advance, familiarizing ourselves with the issues and understanding the concepts that would be discussed; that way, we would be able to have an informed discussion when it came time for the conference. We chose an instance of genocide and then tried to identify the common features of each and develop statements about how to prevent such incidents from recurring.

The conference began on a high note when Mr. John Gardiner, Assistant Curriculum Director at Sterling High School, received the Axelrod Foundation award for excellence in teaching tolerance. From there, things only got better as the keynote speakers told their inspirational stories; the speakers included Paul Winkler, NJ State Commissioner on Holocaust Education, Mr. Arthur Seltzer, one of the liberators of Dachau, Mrs. Frances Neuman, who was taken at age 10 to Blachamer concentration camp, and Dr. Jerry Ehrlich, who witnessed the genocide in Darfur through his service with Doctors without Borders. They told tales that were terribly sad, but also informative. It is important to know the facts when it comes to these terrible acts so they are not repeated. 

Junior JT Harding presents at the conference.

After that, the groups broke up to answer some questions based on Cambodia, the Holocaust, or whichever genocide they chose. The conference concluded with the groups presenting the results from their time together so that by the end of the day we were all well aware of not just the amount of hate in the world around us, but also how we could work to change it.