Please join us as we celebrate this year's amazing scholarship recipients, who each in their own way uphold Anne Frank's humanitarian ideals. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year's Spirit of Anne Frank Awards will be presented virtually.
Many thanks to Les and Sybil Rosenberg for sponsoring the 2020 Spirit of Anne Frank Awards scholarships.
Congratulations!
Caragan Olles
2020 SAFA Scholarship - $5000
Green Bay, Wisconsin
Through "Bright Young Dyslexics," Caragan recognized that there can be a better way of communicating, improving education, and working to overturn a demoralizing stereotype that affects thousands of students. Next year, she brings her talents and dedication to the University of Miami with plans to study entrepreneurship.
Yousuf Khan
2020 SAFA Scholarship - $2500
Glendale Heights, Illinois
Yousuf Khan will pursue marketing and pre-medicine next year at Northern Illinois University and aspires to be a psychiatrist. He has been heavily involved in creating interfaith and inter-cultural dialogue within his high school, Glenbard West. As a freshman he worked to host a Q and A session about Islam, and as co-president of the Muslim Student Association at his high school, he has worked with leaders of the Black Student Association, Glenbard Latino Organization, and Asian Club to host a number of collaboration events where students have the opportunity to express their identities and learn about the identities of others. Yousuf has presented to the Glenbard West faculty on how to promote diversity and incorporate student identities. Yousuf is honored to be a recipient of this distinction, and is grateful for the opportunities he has had to learn about the experiences and background of his peers.
His determination to overcome obstacles and discrimination through education is exactly how we can build a more compassionate world.
Julia Seay
2020 SAFA Scholarship - $1000
Atlanta, Georgia
Julia Seay was born in Miami, Florida and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a graduate of Westlake High School and secured her place in the top 1% of her class as a Magnet and International Baccalaureate student. Though well-accomplished, Julia is most proud of her leadership roles. She served as President of National Honor Society, Co-President of National Art Honor Society and as one of the three founders of The Brainy Bunch, an organization is dedicated to mental health awareness. Along with her humanitarian efforts, Julia is an environmentalist who wants to bring diversity to the least diverse field in STEM. Currently, she is working to patent her solution to decreasing the effects of global warming. Julia is extremely honored to be recognized as an Anne Frank Scholarship recipient for her efforts in mental health awareness.
Mia Lazar
2020 SAFA Scholarship - $1000
Blacksburg, Virginia
Mia Lazar is a rising college freshman from Southwest Virginia. She’s also a documentary filmmaker. Her films cover a variety of topics, including environmental issues, women’s rights, and protecting refugees. Mia has won national and international awards for her filmmaking. Several of her films have been broadcast on national television through the C-SPAN StudentCam competition. Mia created the Filmshakers Festival, an anti-bigotry film festival for high school students held in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the fall of 2019. Ten films from young filmmakers across the country were selected as finalists and screened. Although Covid-19 has created some obstacles, Mia is hoping to hold the Filmshakers Festival again in 2021.
Mia's recognition of the power of the arts to inspire positive change demonstrates the impact that can be achieved by highlighting human stories and connectedness.
Sita Conde
2020 SAFA Scholarship - $1000
Miami, Florida
Sita Conde is a recent graduate from Coral Reef Senior High in Miami, Florida. Ever since her freshman year of high school, she has grown increasingly interested in literature and race relations. As a Liberian-American girl growing up in a predominantly white community, Sita noticed that there were not many images of girls that looked like her in the books that she read in class and decided to promote culturally-diverse literature. She created REMY as a way to help ensure that more children feel represented in the books that they read. Sita hopes to continue this project at Duke University as she studies English and Human Rights, and afterwards.
Seeing the need for positive images, cultural understanding, and self-identity among minority youth, Sita has worked to ensure elementary students have access to library books that represent their diverse communities.
About the Awards
Each year in celebration of Anne Frank's birthday, the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect hosts the Spirit of Anne Frank Awards to recognize worthy students, educators, citizens, peacemakers, and role models who uphold Anne's ideals of hope, justice, and equality. Scholarship and humanitarian award recipients are selected based on their extraordinary social and humanitarian efforts to engender understanding, equality, and mutual respect among diverse populations of people.
2019 AFC Gala: Scroll right for more pictures or click here for event gallery
Recent Honorees
2019 SAFA Interfaith Unity Award
Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, Reverend Eric S.C. Manning, and Imam Ibrahim Abdelhalim
This year we recognize congregations who have witnessed unspeakable tragedy in the midst of prayer:
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Linwood & Al Noor Masjids
Christchurch, New Zealand · March 15, 2019 -
Tree of Life *Or L'Simcha Synagogue
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania · October 27, 2018 -
Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church
Charleston, South Carolina · June 17, 2015
The world has been deeply moved by these and other horrifying tragedies throughout the world; we share in the mourning yet are also inspired by the spirit of solidarity that has emerged.