Join Chhange (Center for Holocaust, Human Rights and Genocide Education) for its 40th annual Colloquium. The event features plenary speaker Shabana Basij-Rasikh, the co-founder and president of the School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA), which she founded while still a teenager. SOLA is Afghanistan’s first and only all-girls’ boarding school, enrolling nearly 100 students.

Born and raised in Kabul, Basij-Rasikh finished high school in the U.S. through the State Department’s Youth Exchange Studies program. In 2008, as a student at Middlebury College, she co-founded SOLA, with the mission of providing access to quality education for girls across her homeland. In August 2021, Basij-Rasikhled the evacuation of her students and SOLA’s faculty from Afghanistan to Rwanda, where all are now engaged in a study abroad program.

Following the keynote, join dozens of breakout workshop leaders including local Holocaust and genocide survivors, community activists, and dynamic educators to learn more about making a difference in your community and beyond. Topics addressed include racism, antisemitism, homophobia, human and civil rights, social justice, and more. Workshop offerings will be sent to registrants in the spring.

All attendees are invited to view Chhange’s eighth annual Student Art Installation, which opens in conjunction with Colloquium. This year’s theme, “Historians of Ourselves,” will invite young people to document and process their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic through art. The exhibit will be open in Brookdale Community College’s CVA Gallery through the summer.

The cost to attend this workshop is $8 per person, and registration is open until May 10, 2022.  Interested participants can register here.

The workshop is open to students, educators and community members. The target audience for this workshop is grade levels 5 through 12.

For more information, visit https://www.chhange.org/events/chhange-2022-colloquium or reach out to Spencer Cronin at spencer.cronin@chhange.org or by phone at 732-224-2616.