Community Events
The Academy’s public events create shared spaces where human rights education sparks dialogue, encourages connection, and inspires collective action for positive change.
Understanding the Crisis in Ukraine: a Webinar for Educators and the Community - 2022
Leaving Kabul: We Thought We Had More Time - 2021
Warning Signs in Bosnia: a Webinar for Educators and the Community
Buffalo Blackness: Teaching Beyond the Books - 2023
A City of Good Neighbors: Defending and Celebrating Buffalo's Immigrant Community - 2025
America Redux: The Power of the Past to Change the Present - 2024
our goalThe Academy’s public events bring people together from every corner of our community to learn, reflect, and engage in dialogue geared toward making meaningful change. Featuring individuals with lived experience in human rights and experts in the field, we seek to work together to build understanding, empathy, and collective action toward a more just and inclusive world.
our award-winning methodology
Sharing Knowledge
We teach about the history of struggles for justice, highlighting the efforts of those who fought for equality and human rights. Understanding these stories, provides our students with perspective on the challenges and possibilities of creating change.
Inspiring Leaders
Our programs introduce students to individuals whose work in human rights demonstrates the power of commitment and integrity. By learning from their examples, young people discover practical ways they can promote dignity, equality, and justice in their own communities.
Building Connections
We help students see the power of working together and how collective action can amplify their voices to drive meaningful change. Through creating these supportive connections, they discover how community can strengthen their impact.
frequently asked questions
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The Summer Symposium welcomes incoming high school freshmen to outgoing high school seniors.
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Summer Symposium tuition is set yearly based on speaker fees / travel arrangements, field trips, and necessary materials. Scholarships are always available.
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The Symposium staff is comprised of teachers and leaders with degrees in education, political science, international development, conflict resolution, post-conflict peacebuilding, mass communications, global and international studies, war and peace studies, and women and gender studies.
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The Summer Symposium looks to history and current events to mark milestones, remember and honor victims and Upstanders, and to address pressing issues of our time.
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We choose speakers who bring real-world experience and a passion for human rights whose stories motivate students to make a difference.
Previous presenters have included:
Ammar Abdulhamid
Allida Black
David Crane
Joe Diamond
Law Eh Soe
Ben Ferenz
Victor Habinshuti
Jillian Hanesworth
Jordan Hattar
John Heffernan
Joan Mulholland
Nada Odeh
Lara Setrakian
Mary Beth Tinker
Carl Wilkens
from our students
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The way you tell your story online can make all the difference
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Maybe you want to launch a business
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Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more
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Maybe you have a creative project to share with the world
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