St. Joe\u2019s seniors Max Shehab and John Marino were so moved by attending the Eradicate Hate Global Summit in Pittsburgh they lobbied school leaders to start a local club.<\/p>\n
Hosted in September at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, the three-day event was dedicated to preventing hate-fueled violence. It was born out of community support in the wake of the 2019 Tree of Life massacre in Squirrel Hill, with hopes to inspire students to create safer schools that build belonging.<\/p>\n
Tom Ridge, former Pennsylvania governor and former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, is the global advisor.<\/p>\n
Through a St. Joe\u2019s chapter, Shehab and Marino want to spark local conversations on tolerance and inclusivity and also encourage volunteerism in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was one speaker who talked about his brother being jumped, all because of his ethnicity,\u201d said Shehab, 18, of Harrison. \u201cIt was eye-opening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marino, 18, of Tarentum, said what he most took away from the event was the concept of community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m from a small town where a lot of my neighbors are close,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s important. It makes a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
The summit was attended by 650 students across the region. It was filled with survivor testimony, expert advice and other lessons to help build relationships and forge solutions to racism and hatred. It had a quick impact on the 10 St. Joe\u2019s students who attended, according to English teacher and club liaison Anne Schratz.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want to get together and talk about cultural awareness and have a space to vent,\u201d Schratz said.<\/p>\n
With her curriculum already highlighting Holocaust education, Schratz said exposure to the Eradicate Hate movement has further fueled students\u2019 interest in diversity.<\/p>\n
She recently assigned her class to read \u201cI Am Malala,\u201d a memoir about Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani woman who, at 15, was shot after championing girls\u2019 right to learn. She survived, went on to address the United Nations and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey won\u2019t see someone like Malala here, but they are interested in learning about different cultures,\u201d Schratz said. \u201cThis summit was exposure for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the summit, students listened to the stories of families affected by violence and worked in groups to brainstorm goals for school programs. They discussed ways of preventing political violence, activating bystanders and understanding AI\u2019s role in attack planning and prevention.<\/p>\n
Teacher David Widenhofer said the firsthand accounts had an immediate impact on many of the students who attended.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of our students said that what he took away from the summit was love,\u201d Widenhofer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother student said that he needed to stop making certain kinds of jokes. He told me, \u2018My friends and I tell them and we know that in our circle we don\u2019t mean anything bad and we\u2019re not against anyone. I used to think that that was OK, but now I don\u2019t.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The school club plans its first meeting later this month. Widenhofer said he hopes the teens can offer ways to make everyone feel welcomed. <\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that the club will help students to develop conflict resolution skills that are non-violent and respectful of each other\u2019s dignity as unique individuals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Joe\u2019s seniors Max Shehab and John Marino were so moved by attending the Eradicate Hate Global Summit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-306014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}