How to Start Summer a Institute

Manchuelle Award
Summer Institute Staff Travels to Rwanda
Our Curriculum
Mission Statement and Goals
Videos of Our Speakers
Student Comments
Our Sponsors
In the Media
Emma's Efforts to Help Orphans in Ghana
Contact Us

The Summer Institute is an affiliated Teacher CoSer of Erie One BOCES, Jane Ogilvie, Division Director and Bob Carlson, Operations Manager, (716) 821-7550


HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2009 SUMMER INSTITUTE & REFRESHERS

For a captioned photo gallery of the 2009 Summer Institute,
please click here >>

SUMMARY:

The 2009 Summer Institute was held between July 27th and August 7th, 2009. Over fifty students and ten teachers heard genocide survivors and internationally known human rights experts such as:

  • Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Survivor and Nobel Prize Winner
  • Carl Wilkens - the only U.S. citizen to remain in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. His choice to stay prevented the massacre of hundreds of children.
  • Dr. Allida Black, Director of the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, and perhaps the world?s expert on Mrs. Roosevelt's contribution to Human Rights
  • Gregory L. Peterson - Chairman of the Robert H. Jackson Center, established to promote the legacy of Nuremberg lead prosecutor of the same nam
  • William Caming, Nuremberg Prosecutor
  • Justice Gabriel Bach, Assistant Prosecutor of Adolph Eichmann
  • Professor Leila Sadat, expert in International Humanitarian Law, and co-founder of the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands (ICC)
  • Professor David Crane - the Founding Chief Prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone (International War Crimes Tribunal)
  • Mr. Eli Rosenbaum, Chief Nazi Hunter of the U.S. Department of Justice
  • Professor John Barrett, international authority on the life of Nuremberg lead prosecutor Robert H. Jackson
  • Joe Diamond ?survivor of Auschwitz
  • Mr. Charles Zappo and Mr. Miron Wasik - WW II Liberators of Dachau
  • Awadiya Yahia, Darfurian Refugee and local peace activist
  • Lee Cutler, Secretary-Treasurer and Human Rights Chair of NYSUT: New York State United Teachers
  • Buffalo for Africa, a local advocacy group designed to help the continent
  • Free the Children, a Nobel-prize nominated group from Toronto that has built over 600 schools worldwide
  • Preethi Govindaraj, founder of the tolerance training institute Minerva, and an expert on the life of Gandhi
  • Hichem Kefi, federal asylum and refugee coordinator in Buffalo, NY
  • Elise Garvey, Program Assistant to the Trafficking Victim Services Program of the International Institute of Buffalo
  • Several area teachers who taught sessions on technology and human rights, civic engagement, genocide, Darfur, and anti-bullying.

LOCATION:

While six days of the Summer Institute were at Hamburg High School in Hamburg, NY, four other days were spent at the following locations, courtesy of our sponsors:

  • Elie Wiesel at the Chautauqua Institute
  • The Robert H. Jackson Center in Jamestown, NY
  • The International Institute of Buffalo, NY
  • Erie Community College, Buffalo Campus

FIELD TRIPS AFTERWARDS:

Due to the generosity of the Jackson Center and David Crane, two weeks after the Institute was over, our students attended the Third Annual International Humanitarian Law Dialogs Conference at the Chautauqua Institute, a gathering and audience with the world's past and current genocide tribunals; information to be had at: http://www.roberthjackson.org/the-center/events/?date=2009-09 with a beautiful photo gallery at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42363546@N08/sets/72157622310457584/show