Local students attend leadership meeting in Washington, D.C. Ten ethnically and racially diverse high school juniors from the greater Los Angeles area represented the Anti-Defamation League Pacific Southwest Region on the ADL Grosfeld Family National Youth Leadership Mission in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 16 to 19, 2008.

Local students in attendance were Alexis Taneman of Oak Park High School, Emilie Maddison and Nicole Hayes of Westlake High School, and Josh Hershman and Zach Mercer of Agoura High School.

The mission focused on building student leadership skills to combat bias in their communities through furthering their knowledge of the Holocaust.

The delegates participated in break-out sessions that discussed anti-bias activities, toured the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and listened to a diverse group of speakers that included Maria Reyes of the Freedom Writers; African American WWII veteran Dr. Leon Bass, who participated in the liberation of Buchenwald; Nesse Godin, a survivor of Stutthof concentration camp, four labor camps and a death march; and Masha Leon, a Holocaust survivor who was saved by Chiune Sugihara, Japanese Consul to Lithuania in 1939 and 1940.

The students also attended the 14th annual ADL In Concert Against Hate at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, featuring the National Symphony Orchestra, where they heard the stories of three people who acted in extraordinary ways when confronted by injustice and terrorism.

Delegates will now share their mission experience with their school communities through presentations, essays or initiating clubs to raise awareness about genocide.

They will also participate in the ongoing ADL youth leadership program, Dream Dialogue, which includes a social action project chosen by the involved students.

For more information about the Anti-Defamation League or its programs, call (310) 4468000, email LA@adl.org or visit www.adl.org/pacific-southwest.