Students at Dame Allan’s Schools in Fenham are reflecting on a successful weekend hosting students from schools in France, Germany, Poland, and Austria for the Relais de la Mémoire junior conference.
Dame Allan’s is the only school in the UK to take part in this important international collaboration which encourages children across Europe to learn from the atrocities of past conflicts in the hope they can work to make sure these mistakes are never repeated.
In the year that commemorates one hundred years since the end of World War I, the motto of the conference ‘La Memoire construit l’Avenir’ (‘Memory builds the future’) is particularly poignant.
Dame Allan’s Principal Dr John Hind opened the event, in which he posed the question ‘What makes us what we are?’ and urged the attendees to embrace the purpose of Relais.
He said: “There are people without honour in all countries, but ventures like Relais show what can be achieved when good people work together and to a common goal.
“I hope that all who take part in the conference learn that what unites us – our common humanity and respect for our fellow men and women – is much stronger than any language, race, or cultural issues which might divide us.”
The Lord Mayor of Newcastle Councillor David Down officially formally welcomed the students and teachers to Newcastle before the keynote speakers, journalist Yvonne Ridley and Professor Martin Pugh, addressed the students and staff.
This year the conference focused on the theme of ‘Women in Times of War’.
In an emotive speech, Ms Ridley talked about her experiences as a woman working in war correspondence and those of the women and children she had encountered throughout her forty-year career.
She said: “Margaret Atwood once said that ‘War is what happens when language fails.’ Having walked through the killing fields of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and other conflict zones in the Middle East and Asia, I can tell you that she is right.”
Ms Ridley went on to highlight key stories such as her own experience of becoming the news story following her capture in Afghanistan in 2001; the heart-breaking story of an 11 year old Rohingya Muslim boy who lost his entire family to the brutality of the Myanmar military; and the horror of being a woman in Syria under the current Assad regime.
However, she stressed that even in the face of such atrocities, she still feels optimistic: “You here today can make a change and turn the world into a better place. And you can do it by going on to become politicians, leaders, journalists, writers and opinion formers and changers, educators – people who can and will make a difference, especially the girls in here today.
“Women are half the world and we gave birth to the other half. […] I hope you all go on to become strong women capable of speaking your own mind and standing up for yourself, but I also want you to remember that strong women can also stand up for everybody else.”
‘Tables rondes’ discussions led by guests focused on topics including the work of Médecins Sans Frontières, the life of Anne Frank, and first hand experiences of World War Two and the Rwandan genocide. As is tradition, the conference explored creative and artistic responses to the main themes, with groups producing dance, music, dramatic, artistic and poetic responses to the stimulus material to which they had been exposed.
Relais de la Memoire was set up in 1984, as the youth branch of Mémoire Des Deportés et Resistants de France, an association formed by Anciens Resistants at the end of WW2 which was designed to ensure that the horrors of that conflict were not revisited on modern day Europe.