Experience of working with Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
Are you aware that the organization Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (also known as VOC) offers an education opportunity for speakers from communist countries to speak to students across the United States, and educate them about what life was like living under oppressive totalitarian regimes?
A supporter of Republican Atheists, who happens to be a teacher at a high school in Nevada, decided to take advantage of VOC’s education opportunity. Here he shares his experience of organizing a presentation with VOC that took place at his high school in early 2020.
“After Republican Atheists’ President Lauren Ell’s suggestion, I reached out to Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s Coordinator, Dani Urankar. Dani did a fairly good job of getting things organized and connecting me with Lily Tang Williams, who I was already familiar with. Lily is an immigrant from China who is outspoken in sharing her experience of growing up under the Chinese Communist Party.
It did take two e-mails to Dani to get the ball rolling in planning the presentation. My school was concerned about the costs of the guest speaker, but VOC covers that with donations (for those who are concerned about spending district money). After that, VOC gave me Lily’s contact information and she and I planned the event directly. There wasn’t much planning between VOC and myself. Lily told me exactly what she needed and I arranged it with the district.
I informed my students ahead of time about the assembly and offered them bonus points for asking questions. Despite this, not many of my students had questions, though there was a 30 minute question session at the end of Lily’s talk which was filled with questions from other students. The entire school attended, about 650 students, which was the largest assembly VOC has done to date. I think the acoustics in our gymnasium could have been better for the assembly.
The juniors and seniors were much more interested than the freshman and sophomores about Lily’s stories, which were incredible. She had lived as a red guard and had to change her entire personality to survive in China. Since no one owned the buildings, simple things like light bulbs and toilet paper wouldn’t be replaced. When Mao died she was expected to mourn for a year. It was pretty terrifying and I would probably have gotten “black bagged” at an early age. She did bring critical attention to how important the Bill of Rights is in the United States, and how she had never been taught such things in China and how she wishes to see the United States remain the ‘shining city on the hill.’ Ultimately I think this was a worthwhile event for my school and will invite VOC to return after some of these students have rotated through.”
We are so happy to share this opportunity showcasing Victim of Communism Memorial Foundation’s efforts to educate young Americans about communism. To learn more about VOC’s education initiative, click here.
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