School students inspired by Dora Love

Schools from Essex and Suffolk came together for the culmination of the Dora Love Prize – a presentation evening where students showcased projects they’ve been working on since September and overall winners were announced.

Dora Love was a Holocaust survivor who in the last 40 years of her life lived and worked in Colchester. She worked tirelessly to teach younger generations that the attitudes which made the Holocaust possible – intolerance, discrimination and hatred of those regarded as ‘different’ – are still alive all around us. 

The Dora Love Prize is open to students in Years 7 to 10 at schools in Essex and Suffolk and is awarded for the project that best expresses Dora’s main principles: speaking up against hatred, never forgetting the consequences of seemingly small acts of discrimination and developing a sense of personal responsibility.

The Prize began with an introductory session for participating schools in September and students then had three months to work on their projects. 

The Presentation Evening saw eleven teams present their work on this year’s theme, ‘The Power of Words’ and prizes were awarded to East Bergholt High School and Alde Valley Academy in Suffolk. The guest of honour was Holocaust survivor Frank Bright, who was separated from his mother at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War Two and lost his parents at the age of 16.

Prize founder and organiser, Emeritus Professor Rainer Schulze, said: "At a time when nationalistic and populist groups are on the rise again and feel they can spread their messages of hate and racism with impunity, the Dora Love Prize is more important than ever.

"It was great to see how all the projects submitted for the Dora Love Prize picked up on this and instead of hatred and division they celebrated the values of tolerance, inclusivity and diversity."