HMDT blog: Five ways to mark HMD at your workplace

Image: Antoinette Mutabazi, a survivor of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, shares her testimony with staff at South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue

Encouraging staff to take time out of their day to reflect on the lessons of HMD can strengthen your organisational values and help to ensure that your working environment is an inclusive and welcoming place. HMD is a time to challenge the discrimination, intolerance, racism, and prejudice which still disfigure parts of our society.

There are many ways you can mark HMD at your workplace, but here are some ideas:

1. Display HMD posters in your staff room or office, which you can download for free on our website.
2. Host a short educational and reflective session about HMD during a lunch breakout activity. Templates take you through what you can do in either 10-30 minutes, or one-two hours.
3. Take a digital action, by posting about HMD on your social media, or internally on your staff Intranet. You can find template posts, hashtags, downloadable graphics and more here, and our blog template here.
4. Take part in our Light the Darkness national moment by lighting up your building in purple or encouraging staff to light a memorial candle at 8pm on 27 January. You can order our HMD commemorative candles, as well as stickers and pin badges, here.
5. Create your own HMD event using our free resources, tailoring it to your audience. For example, law firms could download our resources on the development of international law through the Nuremburg Trials, or the UN tribunals for more recent genocides – and discuss them as a team. Download our Get involved guide for workplaces for free here.

If you are marking HMD, please also consider holding a fundraiser for the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust as part of your activities. This could be as simple as including a collection, or you could hold a bigger fundraising event. There is an online fundraiser for workplaces that have marked HMD here or you can find out about other ways to support our work here. Your donation will help to bring people together from different backgrounds to learn about the past and take actions for a better future.

To discuss marking HMD at your workplace, including how you could tailor it to your organisation, please do reach out to [email protected].

Finally, as ever, make sure you add your activity to our interactive map to become part of the big picture of how the UK marks HMD 2024.