Holocaust Educational Trust wins at the Charity Awards 2025
Organisation hailed for Testimony 360, a digital educational programme combining eyewitness accounts from Shoah survivors with virtual reality
The Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) has taken the top prize in the education and training category at this year’s Charity Awards.
HET was recognised for its free, digital educational programme, Testimony 360: People & Places of the Holocaust, that combines eyewitness testimony from Holocaust survivors with virtual reality.
It has taken the filmed testimonies of survivors and turned them into a digital interactive programme powered by an AI search engine. Pupils can ask a question, and the AI selects the correct response from the recorded survivor testimony, creating an authentic and immersive conversational experience.
The testimonies are combined with footage filmed in key locations across Europe as they are today, including in concentration camps, and an innovative controller app gives teachers full control over the content shown in VR headsets, enabling them to adapt lessons as they evolve.
Alongside other winners, HET was presented with the trophy at a black-tie ceremony at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London on 3 July, hosted by BBC News presenter Asad Ahmad.
Awards judge Shane Ryan, said the combination of “urgent need, technological innovation, educational excellence, and ethical implementation makes Testimony 360 truly outstanding”.
Matt Nolan, chief executive of Civil Society Media which organises the awards, described the programme as “a great project that will futureproof the charity’s work, and they should be very proud to have won.”
HET chief executive Karen Pollock said she was “thrilled” with the accolade, adding that the resource “continues to revolutionise how students learn about history in the classroom” and that the award is “recognition of the importance of learning and remembering about the Holocaust and the vital role of testimony in Holocaust education, helping to ensure the lessons of the past are never forgotten.”
- Testimony 360 is sponsored by The Eyal & Marilyn Ofer Family Foundation in partnership with the Holocaust Educational Trust and the USC Shoah Foundation.
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