Students from Treorchy Comprehensive School were invited to join the First Minister of Wales, The Rt Hon Mark Drakeford MS at the Wales National Srebrenica Commemoration Event at Cardiff and Vale College on Wednesday 6th July, after being awarded Youth Ambassador Status for a series of innovative projects and campaigns aimed to educate peers and the community.
The students were awarded the status last week at a presentation evening hosted at the Parc and Dare Theatre, Treorchy, by Rhondda Cynon Taf Mayor Councillor Wendy Treeby, after taking part in an innovative new pilot programme run by RCT Community Cohesion Officers.
The Youth Ambassador Programme is accredited and pupils who take part have the opportunity to gain a qualification for time, effort and work produced as well as obtaining a status certificate, demonstrating a commitment to challenging discrimination and promoting cohesion in Treorchy and the surrounding communities as Youth Ambassadors.
As part of the project, the pupils taking part attended training days with Abi Carter (Forensic Archaeologist, co-chair of Remembering Srebrenica Wales and voted as one of the most influential women in Wales) and Deputy Chair Geena Whiteman, who talked to them about Hate Crime and genocide, specifically the genocide that occurred in Srebrenica, Bosnia 1995. The pupils were then tasked with developing a project to commemorate the lives lost in Srebrenica and raise awareness of the genocide and war crimes that occurred there.
The projects were presented last week during a Presentation Evening at the Parc and Dare Theatre, Treorchy. The evening was attended by the Mayor, Chief Inspector for Community Safety, Abi Carter and Bosnian survivor Alina Reis, who acted as a panel of judges to choose a winning project. All of the projects were outstanding, with an impressive amount of effort put into the campaigns by the pupils.
Councillor Rhys Lewis, Cabinet Member for Education, Youth Participation & Welsh Language, said:
“The name Srebrenica has become synonymous with those dark days in July 1995 when, in the first ever United Nations declared safe area, thousands of men and boys were systematically murdered and buried in mass graves. The victims, who were Muslim, were selected for death on the basis of their identity. This was the worst atrocity on European soil since the Second World War.
We pride ourselves on our tradition of welcome in Wales, but the memory of Srebrenica is an important reminder of where discrimination, exclusion and the promotion of hatred and extremism can lead. We are committed to tackling all forms of hatred and intolerance in Rhondda Cynon Taf, and we are proud to follow the lead of our young people in this regard.
I feel confident that the future of our communities are in safe hands when young people in Rhondda Cynon Taf show such initiative, curiosity and passion.
I would strongly encourage residents who want to learn more to visit the Remembering Srebrenica exhibition in Cynon Valley Museum, available to view until July 11th.
The theme of Remembering Srebrenica for 2022 is ‘Combatting Denial: Challenging Hatred’.
The organisation states on its website that,
“denial of the Srebrenica genocide as well as the crimes against humanity committed across Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 to 1995 remains prevalent amongst individuals and institutions at the highest levels, including the Mayor of Srebrenica, the current political leadership of Republika Srpska and Serbia as well as Russia which vetoed a UN resolution in 2015 to condemn the killings at Srebrenica as a genocide…
… Denial brings not only more pain and suffering for the survivors but serves as a rallying call to continue the division and hatred as well as to glorify the murderers. Denial also serves as a significant impediment to peace and reconciliation which can never be achieved without acknowledgement…
… In the UK, communities are only too aware of the damaging impact that denial can have for individuals and community cohesion.
Victims of serious crime can often be subjected to further trauma when having to confront perpetrators in a court of law who deny that they have committed their crimes. In addition to denial, the perpetrators seek to minimise what they have done or concoct a version of events based on alternative facts that reverses the blame which is placed upon the victim. This exacerbates the suffering of the victims and can deter many from coming forward to report incidents out of fear of having to face the denial which increases the painful experiences that they have had to endure.
Home Office figures reveal a worrying trend across the country in which the number of hate crimes recorded have doubled in the space of five years. Reported hate crimes have increased by 9% since last year to a record 124,091, with nearly three quarters of those incidents being racially motivated crimes. These sobering statistics underline the scale of the problem which our communities face, yet there are still those who continue to deny the seriousness of the issue which needs to be addressed and fail to take the action required, despite these statistics and the lived experiences of those on the receiving end of such hate crime.
The Remembering Srebrenica exhibition in Cynon Valley Museum is available to view until the 11th July.
You can read more about Remembering Srebrenica at https://srebrenica.org.uk/.
Posted on 07/07/2022