Student Leadership Day 2011

October 19, 2010

Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center welcomes
high school students for Student Leadership Day

Over 100 high school students and educators from across the Midwest joined the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center for its 2010 Student Leadership Day, sponsored by PNC Bank. This year’s theme, “The Power of One: Choosing to Make a Difference,” focused on raising awareness of the history and lessons of genocide, and learning tools to combat prejudice, bullying and indifference in the student’s local and global communities. “I come here today as a former bully and someone who has been bullied.  I look at myself in the mirror everyday and ask myself how can I be a better person?” said Aavo Reinfeldt, Executive Vice President, Corporate Banking, PNC Bank.  “Each of you can stand up and speak out against bullies, you each have a voice.”

Participants engaged in a number of activities, including working with Holocaust survivors. The event featured a keynote address from Carl Wilkens, the former head of Adventist Development and Relief Agency International in Rwanda. In 1994, he was the only American who chose to remain the country after the genocide began. Wilkens’ choice to stay in the country helped to prevent the massacre of hundreds of children over the course of the genocide. “We've got to challenge the "us and them" thinking plaguing our minds and our communities. Them are us, Wilkens stated. Not us and them. We tend to divide people, but we all live on one planet.”

Photo: (Left to Right) Carl Wilkens with staff and students from St. Viator High School, Arlington Heights

Student Leadership Day 2009

Creating a Global Community:
Building Foundations for Effective Leadership & Change

"As I go through history, over and over again people find something in them that requires them to stand up for what is right. I wonder what it's going to be for you that requires you to stand up for someone who's different."   - Eboo Patel

"Creating a Global Community: Building Foundations for Effective Leadership and Change" was the theme for IHMEC’s Inaugural Student Leadership Day, supported by National City/now a part of PNC corporate bank. Over 110 students participated in the event, which featured a keynote address by Eboo Patel, founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based institution building the global interfaith youth movement.  As a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, he is working to realize the President’s priority of interfaith cooperation. Recently chosen by Harvard’s Kennedy School Review as one of five future policy leaders to watch, Eboo was honored as a recipient of the 2009 Roosevelt Institute’s Freedom of Worship Medal and was chosen as one of the 2009 America’s Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report.

The goal of the Student Leadership Day was to increase awareness and knowledge of the Holocaust and genocide and to challenge students to think about lessons that can be learned from the past.  That they can work to prevent genocide by raising awareness, by voicing opposition to the prejudices and indifference encountered and by engaging in activities that promote global peace and understanding.  Student participants were nominated by their teachers to attend the program and were proven leaders in their schools and communities.  Many of the students were part of school Peer Mediation groups, STAND: an anti-genocide student network, Amnesty International, UN Model Charter Clubs, or Student Council. 

Participants engaged in a number of activities, including working with Holocaust survivors and viewing the Karkomi Permanent Exhibition.  During lunch students heard remarks from Richard Hirschhaut, IHMEC Executive Director, and Aavo Reinfeldt, Executive Vice President of National City/PNC Corporate Bank.  "What we really need to talk about is transforming ourselves for the future and that is what today is about… Every time I come to a place like this I do it to awaken my spirit… It starts with me and it starts with you," said Aavo.

 Photos courtesy of IHMEC Collection

Program generously supported by