NY Times, Chicago Tribune Explore Ambassador Program

“We live in a world where nothing is hidden anymore, and these children want to understand it — they need to understand it,” 9/11 Memorial Museum Director Alice Greenwald told The New York Times in an interview about the Museum’s ambassador program. The Times, along with the Chicago Tribune, recently featured the ambassador program, a semester-long after-school program offered to students in grades 10 through 12.

In the article “Coming of Age as a Guide at Ground Zero,” the Times focuses on the reasons teenage ambassadors feel that it is important for their peers to learn about 9/11.

Annalee Tai, a junior at Bard High School on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, is completing the ambassador program this spring in the program’s second term.

“I have very faint memories of my parents watching television and being very concerned and very distraught,” Tai told the Times. “Because of that, I think it’s almost my duty to become more knowledgeable about the subject.”

The Chicago Tribune also featured the program last month, exploring how many ambassadors believe “that it’s important for those their age and younger to appreciate the gravity of what happened.” The Tribune discusses ways to teach children about the sensitive topic of 9/11 and highlights the Museum programs available for children ages five to 12.

"You can't understand the world today without understanding what happened on 9/11," Noah Rauch, the museum's director of education, told the Tribune.

The Museum is currently hosting the second class of ambassadors. Read more about the program here.

By Jordan Friedman, 9/11 Memorial Research and Digital Projects Associate