How We Started

Students with purple uniforms waiting to enter primary school in Kolonyi near Mbale in Uganda

It started with a workshop

EIHR’s first teacher workshop. Kigali Genocide Memorial, Rwanda 2011

In 2011, Educators’ Institute for Human Rights (EIHR) began with one simple question: How can we combat hate through education?

Since then, EIHR has seen that the key to ending hate is teachers working with teachers to help students in war-torn regions understand the precedents of hate and practical ways to prevent future conflict.

EIHR’s Director of Education for Rwanda, Aimable Mpayimana, celebrates with colleagues after a workshop at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, 2014

EIHR was born out of the Museum Teacher Fellowship at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, DC, where, as the Museum’s director of Genocide Prevention, I first met with the remarkable teachers who later became the founding members of EIHR — educators from around the world who received training on the best practices in genocide and atrocities prevention education.

Idea becomes reality

It began with a workshop in Kigali, Rwanda, to share Holocaust education resources with Rwandan educators and connect that historic period to past and current genodices—inducing Rwanda’s own 1994 genocide against the Tutsis.

The journey so far

EIHR’s International Education Coordinator for Cambodia, Kelly Watson, confers with a fellow teacher at a workshop in Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2016. Photo courtesy of the Documentation Center, Cambodia

That one workshop in Rwanda formed the foundation for what EIHR would become. Soon, workshops in Bosnia followed. Building partnerships and programming through, for example, the Documentation Center, Cambodia (DC Cam) to deliver teacher training in Cambodia. Similar programs in Argentina and Democratic Republic of Congo soon followed.

2018 Nobel Peace Laureate Nadia Murad and EIHR Exec. Director Kate English meet in New York City, March, 2016

And, as our reach has grown, so has our staff. For almost a decade, volunteer teachers Drew Beiter, Kate English and Jesica Bylo have worked tirelessly leading in-person trainings, webinars and workshops. In 2019, after nearly a decade of training and building partnerships around the world, the EIHR board, with the critical support of the Bylo-Chacon Foundation, made Kate English its full time Executive Director.

In that role, Kate has put together a remarkable team from Argentina to Ukraine.

Though EIHR has transformed over the years, our vision remains rooted in our passion for human rights and Holocaust education.

Teachers have a crucial role to play in preventing hate. When provided with adequate resources and tools, the effect of global teacher partnerships can truly be felt. As EIHR continues to grow, we remain true to our roots and continue to acknowledge and recognize the enormous role that education can play in combating injustice and inequality around the world.

—John Heffernan, President EIHR Board