Ford Partnering with Steven Spielberg-Founded Shoah Foundation
Ford is working to expand a program in Detroit schools that brings genocide survivor testimonials into the classroom.
Filmmaker Steven Spielberg is partnering with Ford Motor Company to integrate testimonies from genocide survivors into the curriculum in Detroit schools. The Spielberg-founded USC Shoah Foundation has created an online platform of more than 50-thousand videos of people who lived through events like the Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide. Foundation Director of Education Kori Street says bringing the stories into classrooms can give students a new perspective on history.
“At Henry Ford here, and we had about 75 kids, and it was the poems they came up with would just blow your mind. Gave me a little goosebumps hearing these kids just say, ‘Ya know, if those people could stand up when they’re surviving great violence, I can certainly you know work to do that today, and they’re just so inspired by these voices from the past.”
-Kori Street, USC Shoah Foundation Director of Education
Street says Ford hopes to bring the program to about 10-percent of Detroit schools. She says the automaker will also sponsor an annual video challenge that encourages teenagers to take lessons from the classroom into their communities.
