TORONTO – The Holodomor National Awareness Tour (HNAT) continued its travels across Canada this past summer, engaging communities and schools about the Holodomor, the Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933.
From southwestern Ontario to the Maritime Provinces to Vancouver Island and back to Ontario, the Holodomor Mobile Classroom (HMC) was on the road this summer since July, visiting communities throughout Canada, many for the first time – including Moncton and St. John in New Brunswick; Halifax and Sydney, Nova Scotia; Prince Edward Island; Victoria, Vancouver and Richmond, British Columbia.
Visitors to the HMC at community events continued to express their gratitude for the opportunity to learn about this tragedy while questioning how the Holodomor was hidden for so long.
Visitors viewed the following on board the HMC: “The Holodomor Story” (adapted from “Soviet Story” by Edvins Snore), Ariadna Ochrymovych’s “Voices of Survivors,” the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Center’s “Harvest of Despair,” Canada-Ukraine Foundation’s “Stalin’s Secret Genocide” and the newest release, “Hunger for Truth: The Rhea Clyman Story.” These documentaries tell the Holodomor story from different perspectives. Some focus on survivors’ testimonies, while others feature leading historians and most importantly show archival documents and film footage uncovered since the early 1980’s.
The Holodomor National Awareness Tour continues to engage students throughout Canada with a one-hour interactive lesson. During this lesson students become “detective researchers” looking at artifacts to get a better understanding of what was happening during the time of the Holodomor. Learning about a past atrocity can prepare students to take a stand in preventing them from happening today.
The Holodomor National Awareness Tour is currently working on a second lesson, “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” which develops the students’ critical thinking skills to understand the importance of standing up against misinformation that is prevalent in today’s media. Canada’s values of social justice, tolerance, equity and human rights are highly regarded throughout the world, and it is up to our youth to safeguard them for everyone in the future.
Since the Holodomor National Awareness Tour took to the road two years ago, over 24,000 students, teachers and members of the public have been on board the HMC. In 2017 alone over 13,000 people have visited the Holodomor Mobile Classroom. The journey of Holodomor awareness continues across Canada, ensuring that the story is told and never forgotten.