West Seneca West Senior High School recently celebrated its first annual Human Rights Awareness Week. During follow-up conversations with students about past Acceptance Week celebrations, it was discussed how the intended message of the week is about how all individuals are equally entitled to basic human rights without discrimination — and a new form of celebrating was created.
Each day of the week spotlighted a group that has historically faced discrimination or oppression of their rights. The week began with a powerful school-wide presentation by Holocaust survivor Stephan Lewy (Holocaust Resource Center of Buffalo) as a way for students to understand the scale of suffering and millions of lives lost during this terrible time in history and understand the origins of the human rights framework.
The remaining four days of the week, students and staff were able to spend their lunch period listening to presentations about disabilities and mental illness (Karl Shallowhorn, director of community advocacy at the Mental Health Association of Erie County), religion and spirituality (Rev. Dr. Jonathan Lawrence, officer of the Religion in WNY Project and professor of theology at Canisius College), sexual orientation and gender identity (Marvin Henchbarger, executive director of Gay & Lesbian Youth Services of WNY), and race and ethnicity (Dr. Erin Robinson, professor of sociology at Canisius College; Therese Bass, assistant director of the African American, Latino/a American, Asian American and Native American Student Center (ALANA) at Canisius College).
A Day of Silence was also observed during the week.
