Suffolk secondary schools come together for launch of Dora Love Prize 2026

Secondary school pupils from across Suffolk came together in Ipswich for the launch event of the 2026 Dora Love Prize.

The event, hosted at The Hold on Wednesday 28 January, provided an opportunity for pupils to learn about the Holocaust and develop their own project work in response shaped around themes of diversity, inclusion and tolerance.

Around 80 pupils from seven Suffolk secondary schools took part in a mixture of academic, theatre and artistic workshops exploring topics such as non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution during the 1930s and 1940s, emotional responses to prejudice and the interpretation of archival and artistic sources to understand the  motives and impacts of genocide.

The day also featured a presentation by Chris Shaw, from Diss, whose mother Isobel Lowy survived concentration camps at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Belsen. She died in 1984.

The Dora Love Prize is named after Holocaust survivor and educator, Dora Rabinowitz Love, and aims to educate secondary school pupils on the Holocaust in a way which makes it relevant for them, inspiring citizenship and democratic engagement to address issues of identity-based prejudice, discrimination, marginalisation and violence in society today.

Wednesday’s event, held in the same week as Holocaust Memorial Day, was organised jointly by the Dora Love Prize Charity, Suffolk Archives and the University of Suffolk’s History team, and marked the second time the launch event was held in Ipswich.

Following the event, the work created by Suffolk schools will go forward to further prize events in Suffolk and Essex to be held in June where it will be assessed by a panel of judges. Last year, work created by students from Alde Valley Academy in Leiston won the Dora Love Prize.

Dr Harvey Osborne, BA (Hons) History Course Leader at the University of Suffolk who led one of the workshops and co-organised the event, said: “It was a privilege to collaborate with our partners the Dora Love Prize Charity and Suffolk Archives to launch the 2026 prize.

“It is vital to ensure the next generation understand the nature of the Holocaust and bringing together students for a series of dedicated workshops in an engaging and respectful way means we can encourage them to explore the wider issues of prejudice and discrimination prevalent today.”

To find out more about the Dora Love Prize, visit the website here: The Dora Love Prize.