Holocaust Educational Trust scoops prize at charity awards

The Holocaust Educational has taken a top prize in the UK’s most prestigious charity awards scheme.

HET won in the education and training category at this year’s Charity Awards, which were celebrated last night in London.

The charity was honoured for its new programme, Testimony 360: People & Places of the Holocaust. This is a free digital education programme for schools that combines eyewitness testimony from Holocaust survivors with virtual reality.

HET has taken the filmed testimonies of survivors and turned them into a digital interactive programme, powered by an AI search engine. Pupils can ask a question, and the AI selects the correct response from the recorded survivor testimony, “creating an authentic and immersive conversational experience”, said HET.

The testimonies are combined with footage filmed in key locations across Europe, including concentration camps, and an app gives teachers full control over the content shown in VR headsets.

Charity Awards judge Shane Ryan, senior adviser to the National Lottery Community Fund, said that the “truly outstanding” Testimony 360 project had won due to “urgent need, technological innovation, educational excellence and ethical implementation”.

The Charity Awards shortlist is chosen by an independent panel of judges, who are all eminent figures in the charity sector.

Karen Pollock CBE, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: “We are thrilled that our new digital programme, Testimony 360: People and Places of the Holocaust, won the training and education category at this year’s charity awards. This resource continues to revolutionise how students learn about history in the classroom.

She added: “The Holocaust was a defining episode of the 20th century - six million Jewish men, women and children murdered. Eighty years on, as we move from living history to history, today’s students are the last generation who can hear directly from survivors of the Holocaust.”

Pollock said that at a time when “denial, distortion and denigration” of the Holocaust were on the increase, Testimony 360 “keeps these stories alive for future generations”.

Matt Nolan, chief executive of Civil Society Media, which organises the Charity Awards, said: “Huge congratulations to Holocaust Educational Trust. It’s a great project that will futureproof the charity’s work, and they should be very proud to have won.”

Testimony 360 is sponsored by The Eyal and Marilyn Ofer Family Foundation in partnership with the Holocaust Educational Trust and the USC Shoah Foundation.

Other charities shortlisted in the education and training category were Get Further and St John’s Hospice North Lancashire and South Lakes

Another winner from the night was icandance, a charity which enables children and young people with disabilities to express themselves through the medium of dance. It won in the disability category, where it was shortlisted alongside The Brain Charity and the National Autistic Society. icandance has worked with many Jewish young people over the years, in collaboration with organisations Kisharon Langdon and Kef Kids.