Three eighth graders from Kansas have won the Lowell
Milken Center for Unsung Heroes’ 2016 Discovery Award (https://lowellmilkencenter.org/2016-discovery-award-winners/ ) for their video about Armenian Genocide
rescuer Emma Darling Cushman. The students and their teacher, Nathan McAlister,
drew on USC Shoah Foundation for support and resources to help their passion
project come to life.
Colin Caviness, Luke Boyden and Colin Everts (left to right
in photo) worked together to research and produce a 10-minute documentary film
titled “Emma Cushman: A Light in the Darkness,” in McAlister’s seventh-grade
history class at Royal Valley Middle School in Mayetta, Kansas last year. Their
assignment was to research a historical figure who was an “unsung hero,” and
McAlister said the boys were fascinated by Cushman’s story.
Cushman was an American nurse who worked in a hospital in
Armenia and then refused to leave when the genocide began. She found safe houses
for countless orphans and then converted the hospital into an orphanage. She
also served as Acting Consul of the Allies and Neutral Nations, overseeing
millions of dollars in relief funds and prisoner exchanges.
Despite this lifesaving work, Cushman is to this day
relatively unknown and never received official acknowledgment for her work. Her
grave is unmarked.
Colin, Luke and Colin pored over historical texts, online
research materials and library resources to discover Cushman’s story. They also
reached out to USC Shoah Foundation staff Richard Hovannisian, Armenian
Genocide expert and advisor for the Institute’s Armenian Genocide testimony
collection, and Sara Cohan, Armenian education and outreach specialist, to be
interviewed in the video.
Cohan has a personal connection to the story: her own
family was saved by Cushman, and her great grandfather worked with her in the
hospital before he was killed in the genocide.
The students also included a clip from the testimony of
Jirair Suchiasian, who was a reclaimed orphan of the Armenian Genocide, which
they found in IWitness.
The boys won the $7,500 grand prize in the 2016 Discovery
Award contest, which challenges elementary through high school students around
the world to make a video about someone they feel is an unsung hero who
positively impacted the lives of others.
Because of their diligent research and passion for
Cushman’s story, the group was given the honor of inscribing her headstone at
the American cemetery in Cairo where she is buried.
They boys said the project helped them develop skills in
researching, writing and using film editing software. They also thanked USC
Shoah Foundation and others who helped them along the way.
“When I first started this project I was skeptical, would
this work, can we do this, would it be good enough? But as soon as we started
working my fear vanished,” Luke said. “I really enjoyed doing research on Emma
Darling Cushman and learning her story. She is very inspiring and her story
deserves to be told. I am so glad I was a part of this project.”
Cushman herself also inspired the group to emulate her
selflessness and bravery in their own lives.
“Throughout this project, I learned that one person
standing against oppression and genocide can save thousands of lives,” Colin C.
said. “The courage required to do such astonishing things is amazing and I now
look up to Emma and others like her who did what was right even though it was
very dangerous and terrifying to do so.”
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