TEACHING PACK RESOURCES FOR
REFUGEE WEEK 2014
Exeter Schools poster competition
This pack of materials has been produced to assist in the teaching of Refugee issues in Exeter
schools.
We have tried to supply easy to use materials that have been previously tried and tested in
Devon Schools. Some of these materials were used as part of DCC’s initiative on teaching about
refugees in 2006 – however these have been updated as required.
Lesson 1 and lesson 2 are suitable for upper Year 5 and 6 children. With adaptation they could
be used for younger children in Year 3 and 4.
Lesson 2 and Lesson 3 could be used by KS3 pupils. Lesson 3 is more suitable for KS4 pupils.
There are many other resources available which are listed at the end of the pack.
The Poster Competition
We hope this pack will help to inspire young people and their schools to be involved in Refugee
Week 2014 by taking part in the Refugee Support Devon’s poster competition.
Posters should have one of the following themes;
 All Different, All Equal
 We came because we had to
 Escaping persecution
 Refugees welcome here
 Passage to a new life
 A place to call home
 Asylum is a human right
Entries into the competition need to be in by Monday 2nd June. Please send entries to;
Lizi Allnatt,
Refugee Week Schools Poster Competition,
Refugee Support Devon
Exeter Community Centre
St Davids Hill
Exeter EX4 3RG
OR we can collect your posters if you contact us.
Please write the name(s), year group, tutor group and name of school clearly on the back of
each entry. Please send no more than 10 entries per school.
A full list of the competition rules is in the accompanying letter.
For more information contact Lizi Allnatt on 07738 563 398 or email [email protected]
We would like to acknowledge generous financial assistance from the Exeter Board Community
Grant – a joint committee of Exeter City and Devon County Council, and also from Devon
National Union of Teachers.
2
LESSON 1 – JACOB’S STORY
LESSON OBJECTIVES
Knowledge
To understand the trying conditions in which refugee children live and endure
Skills
To practise extracting factual information from written material
To apply imaginative thinking to the situations of refugee children
Values
To encourage empathy by having the students imagine themselves in Jacob's situation
Background
Jacob is a Sudanese refugee child who fled Sudan without his family. After joining up with other Sudanese boys who
were also without parents, he walked from southern Sudan, across thousands of miles of barren land, to the safety
of a refugee camp in north-west Kenya.
Preparation
Have ready a class set of Jacob's Story. Have a large map of the world installed where all the children can see it.
Introduction
Begin the lesson with some questions to stir the children's imagination and to sensitise them to the situation that
Jacob is in. Some "set the scene" questions could include the following:




"What's the longest distance you have ever, ever walked?"
"Were you wearing shoes when you walked so far?"
"If you had to walk, let's say, a thousand kilometres, where could you have walked to? If you walked two
thousand kilometres, where might you be?"
"Do you think you could walk to this place, having to carry everything that you would need for the trip all by
yourself? You may have made the journey with some other children, but without either your parents or the
parents of the other children. Would you like to do it? Why, or why not?"
Show children the photo of the Sudanese refugee children and let them give their first impressions of the photo
before reading through the account of Jacob’s Story together. Show them the route on the world map.
Encourage the children to imagine themselves making the long trek from Sudan to Ethiopia. To help the children
comprehend the distance walked by Jacob and his companions, give the children a destination, with which they are
familiar, which is a similar distance from their home town or country, eg Spain. NB the photo on Page 5 is in black
and white – there is a colour version at the end of the booklet
Main Episodes
The teacher reads aloud Jacob's story.
Students answer the comprehension questions on Jacob's Story, either orally or on paper.
Closing Episode




Discuss pupil responses to the comprehension questions.
What do the pupils think would be Jacob’s one wish?
Agree on a definition of a refugee.
State to class that Jacob is not alone – there are millions of refugees around the world, many of them
children, who have been forced to flee their homes due to war, natural disasters or because they fear for
their life.
3
Jacob's Story
from Refugee Children (Geneva, UNHCR, 1993)
For a long time, Jacob dreamed of living in a place where there was no fighting. One day he decided to run away
from his village in southern Sudan. "In my hometown in southern Sudan, there was fighting everywhere. Many
people were killed. There was no school and I was just looking after the animals and playing all the time. For a long
time, I dreamed of running away to a place where there was no war, where I could go to school again, where there
was food, and where the bombs could not hurt my father's goats.
Time to go
I knew that this place did not only exist in my dreams because I had heard people in town talking about it and
planning to go there. Lots of people were going there. I asked my father, "Can't we go there now?" But he said it was
too dangerous. People were dying on the road of hunger and thirst.
A woman was living alone next door with her two children because her husband had been killed in the fighting. It
was when she left that I decided it was time to go.
So I just left without telling anyone. Not even my father. There were so many people walking on the road. I had
nothing. No clothes. No food. The first day I didn't eat. I just ran. And the first night I remembered the wild animals I
had seen along the road. And I was afraid, so I climbed up a tree to sleep. But I couldn't sleep. I thought something
would come and pull me down, or that I would fall.
A long and hazardous journey
The next day I found the woman who lived next door to us in my hometown. She asked me why I had left without
anyone to care for me. I told her it was because everyone was always running from the bombs. Even our goats were
bombed. No one had time to plant the crops. She said, "OK. You can come with us." So we walked for days.
One day we came to a place that had mines. Someone was blown up and everyone started running and there was
blood everywhere. We held hands tightly and ran together across the field. We reached a river. On the other side,
we found more people. All of them were hungry. So we kept walking and people walked with us. In this way, our
group got bigger every day.
We walked through many empty villages, where people just like me had run away. We saw villages where there was
nobody. Not even a cat. We had no food and people started eating leaves.
The place of Jacob's dreams
After ten days, people in our group began to die. One night, an old man sat in the road and said he couldn't walk any
more. He died an hour later. We crossed another river and planes dropped bombs on us. I was very tired and
thought we would never find the camp. But the woman told me, "We are close. After we have crossed the border
into Ethiopia we won't have any more problems."
Three hours later we reached the camp. There are many people here from Sudan who are just like me. This is the
place I dreamed of. Now I go to school again. In the camp, there is food and medicine. And the sound of planes no
longer frightens me because I know they are carrying food, not bombs.
But when I hear the planes I remember my father and brothers in my village and I am sad. I think the day I ran away,
they forgot I loved them. I would like to go home."
Activities: Jacob's Story
1. Where did Jacob and the other boys come from?
2. Were there many boys or just a few who made the trek to safety in Ethiopia?
3. Write down the reasons why Jacob and the other children felt that they could no longer stay in their home town,
even in their home country.
4. List all the possibly dangerous things that you can think of that could have happened to Jacob on his trek.
5. Jacob is a refugee child. What do you think makes him a refugee?
6. Imagine Jacob could be granted one wish, what do you think it would be?
4
Thousands of boys roamed between Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya after
fleeing from the fighting in southern Sudan. Gradually they met up and
formed into large groups. Some stayed on the road for years, crossing
thousands of miles of barren land.
UNHCR
5
LESSON 2 REFUGEES – FORCED TO FLEE
Lesson Objectives;


For students to empathise with the situation of refugees,
For students to understand what motivates someone to become a refugee
Starter – What Would You Take? (20 mins)

Ask pupils to imagine that when they went home tonight they discovered they were in great danger and had
to leave home immediately.

They have to leave their home in a hurry (in 10 minutes), they don’t know when they’ll next see their family,
and only have time to take 10 items (apart from the clothes they are wearing) – what would they take to help them
survive and what would they take to remind them of home?

Remind them they need to think carefully about what to take. Suggestions: passport, money, family photos,
a weapon (but might get you in trouble),blankets, tent, water/food,

Pupils can discuss this in pairs for a few minutes but should complete this task individually.

Now tell the class that their bags are too heavy and they need to leave some items behind – they can only
take 5 items each. They should write which ones they are taking and say why.

Explain this happens to refugees everyday all over the world

Read refugees testimony. (sheet A)
Activity – Refugee Board Game (30 mins) What experiences do refugees go through on their journey to safety? This
game looks at the sort of things they experience;




Each player receives a story card and a handout of six personal belongings.
Players each read out their story cards to the group.
Players take turns to roll the die for their personal belongings.
The number thrown indicates the number of personal belonging cards they can keep. (A six means the player
can keep all six cards, and so on down.)
 Players take turns rolling the die and moving forward the number of spaces indicated.
 Players landing on ‘Chance’ spaces must pick up a chance card, read it out to the group and follow the
directions. (It is important that the cards are read out to the group, so all players realise why a certain player
is held up etc)
 The game ends when all players reach freedom and safety.
Discussion: Discuss issues raised in the game and how it might really feel, if it wasn’t a game, to have to leave all your
friends and relatives, home and country.
Closing Plenary (10mins)
Discuss the difficulties that many refugees face in simply trying to seek a life without persecution and torture. Point
out that in the game we all made it to safety and freedom but that in real life many people, including children, are
killed in their own countries or die trying to escape. Discuss the difference between refugees and other immigrants,
ie refugees are fleeing war/persecution whereas most immigrants are moving for economic reasons. (Asylum
Seekers are people who have made a claim for refugee status that has yet to be decided)
Resources needed


6
Starter;
o Testimony of refugees (A)
Activity Two;
o Board - photocopy onto A3 paper – one board per group of 4/5 (B)
o Dice
o Marker for each player
o Chance cards – one set per group of 4/5 (C)
o Handouts of personal belonging cards – one per player (D)
o
Story cards - one per player (E)
Sheet A
Refugees testimony
Both these accounts are taken from New Internationalist Issue 283
Both these accounts are of refugees who fled fighting in Sudan in the 1990s.
Cecilia
‘When the shelling started, I was not at home. I was studying at the College of Adult Education and Training in Juba. I
had to run in just the clothes I stood up in, not knowing where the rest of my family were or what had happened to
them. On the way I saw many horrible things – five small children, burnt black. Horrible. I ran through the bush. I
stayed for three days without food.
‘Like many other people, I carried my certificates and important documents with me wherever I went. I taped them
to my body – just in case. So when I came here I was able to show my qualifications and to get a job as a Community
Support Officer for Health here in the camp. But life is hard...I can’t contact my family because I know that people
who receive letters from abroad can be accused of having rebel connections.
‘I would like to go to America to get training so that if peace comes I can go and assist my people.’
Theodor
‘The worst thing for me has been leaving my books behind. Wherever I went, I took some books with me. I wanted
to increase my knowledge. But because I was having to move so much I often had to leave my precious books; just
dump them under a tree. This was very hard for me.
‘I have been completely changed by my exile. I have to do something. I cannot keep quiet – something has changed
inside me. If I can get the opportunity I will do some studies to improve my language so that I can try to express my
ideas. Maybe then I will be able to do something very good for all people, particularly for the people of south Sudan.
‘I have come to understand that refugee life means determination. It is not an easy thing. If you are not determined,
you may find yourself deciding that it is better to go back and stay in Government-held territories even if you are
subject to so many atrocities. For me, I would rather suffer in exile than stay in my country being oppressed.
‘I will only go back to Sudan when there is true peace; when the Government in Khartoum signs a peace with the
people of the South. Until then I will have to remain a refugee.’
7
8
Sheet C
Chance cards: copy and cut out
Your passport
and documents
are stolen from you.
Go back 3 spaces.
If you do not have any
water, you drink from
puddles on the ground.
This makes you sick.
Miss a turn.
If you have money
a truck will give you a lift
to a nearby refugee camp.
Move ahead 4 spaces.
You arrive at a refugee
processing centre.
Move ahead 6 spaces
if you have your passport
and documents.
You meet up with
some friends. This makes
you much happier.
Move ahead 2 spaces.
You get some very
sad news about
relatives back at home.
Go back one space.
You have to run quickly
from the sound of guns.
You must leave
your water behind
because it is too heavy.
You spend two days trying
to contact your relatives
and friends to let them
know you are still alive.
Miss a turn.
If you have your photos,
they help to cheer you up.
Move ahead one space.
If you have no food, you
become sick and weak.
Miss a turn.
You hear from relatives
and learn that your home
and all your possessions
have been burned.
Go back 3 spaces.
At a refugee camp
the water is very dirty
and makes you sick.
Miss a turn.
Guards at the border beat
you up and steal any
possessions you are
carrying. Lose all cards.
Go back 6 spaces.
In the refugee camp there
aren’t enough toilets.
You become sick from
the sewage pollution.
Go back 2 spaces.
The rest of your family are
given visas to travel, but you
have a disease so you cannot
go.
Miss a turn.
The nights are very cold.
If you have extra clothes
Move ahead 2 spaces.
A family member goes
missing. You spend days
trying to find them but
they never turn up.
Miss a turn.
The United Nations High
Commission for Refugees
has provides health care and
emergency food.
Move ahead 3 places.
9
PERSONAL BELONGINGS CARDS
Sheet D
(PHOTOCOPY AS NEEDED; ONE SET PER PLAYER)
Photos of home
Extra clothes
Passport and important documents
Food
Money
Sheet E
STORY CARDS - COPY AND CUT OUT
Your father works for a newspaper. He wrote an article
which described some problems with the government.
Since he did this there have been threatening phone
calls to your house every day.On the way home from
school your older brother was beaten up.
When the family reported this to the police things got
worse. Another man who also worked for the same
paper has disappeared. Some say he is dead. Now your
family is afraid to leave the house.
There has been a revolution in your country. Many
people have been killed. Two of your brothers were
accused of fighting against the new government and its
army, and were executed. The accusations were not
true.
Now you fear for your own life. For six months you have
spent every night in a different house so as not to be
found.
10
Water
There has been war in your country for many years but
until recently it wasn’t near you. One night soldiers
came into your village with guns and forced everybody
to leave. When one member of your family tried to stop
the soldiers from coming into your house he was shot
and killed.
You have a different religion from all the people in the
villages nearby so they will not let you stay with them
because this might bring trouble to their village.
You are a 15 year old boy. In your country all the young
teenage boys are taken by the army and forced to fight
and kill people from your own country who do not agree
with the government.
Up until now every time the army have come around
you have been hidden in the house.If you stay you will
be forced to join the army. Many young men are killed
every day in the army. If you refuse to join the army you
and your family will be tortured and maybe killed.
Lesson 3 MYTHS AND STEREOTYPES
Lesson Objectives


For students to consider the nature of stereotyping
For students to understand that refugees and asylum seekers are often unfairly stereotyped by the press
Starter – What do you know about refugees quiz (15 mins)

Ask pupils to complete the quiz sheet in pairs or in groups – allow them 10 minutes. They should discuss and
agree their answers.

If they finish quickly you could state how many out of 10 they have got right (it’s usually only 2 or 3!) – they
find this a challenge

Go through the answers, using the answers to provoke discussion.

This is a useful starting point for challenging some of the myths about refugees.
Activity Two – Exploring stereotypes (10 mins)

Give students the information sheet “Two newspaper articles” and ask them to guess who they think each
article is about and why. Read through each article.

The first quote was made by an angry Spaniard about the 300,000 Britons living in the Costa del Sol. The
second quote was published by an Australian newspaper – the missing word is “Poms”.

Discuss; are there any elements of truth in these articles? What is fair/unfair about what is said? How are
British people stereotyped? What are the dangers of stereotypes?
Activity Three – Young people, refugees and stereotypes (20 mins)

Divide the class into groups and hand them the sheet “what do the papers say about young people”. Give
them a few minutes to read the sheet and discuss
 do these stories make all young people look bad?
 if your only information about young people was from these stories how would you feel about them
 whether this is a true reflection of all young people? Are the stories biased?

Now ask them to look at the headlines about refugees. Ask them to imagine that they are a refugee and had
to leave their country because their life was in danger.
 How does it make them feel?
 Do the headlines tell the whole story?

Explain that recently refugees seem to have become a popular scapegoat, particularly with the press.
Closing Plenary (10mins) Depending on the level of the class the links between stereotyping, prejudice and
discrimination can be discussed. Also the role of “active citizens”, ie the importance of not being a bystander and of
challenging these myths when they are repeated. How can they be combated?
Resources needed



Activity One;
o Quiz sheet and teachers notes (F)
Activity Two;
o Info sheet/OHP of “Two newspaper articles” (G)
Activity Three;
o Handout “what do the papers say about young people” (H)
o Handout “what do the papers say about refugees” (I)
o Teachers notes for “what do the papers say about refugees” (J)
11
What do you know about refugees?
Write or circle the correct answers
1. In 2012, which two countries produced the highest number of refugees?
__________________________ ______________________________
2. Which continent do most of the world’s refugees go to?
A. Asia
B. North America
C. Europe
D. Africa
3. When an asylum seeker is living in Britain what benefits are they entitled to?
A. They get more than British citizens
B. They get the same as British citizens
C. They get less than British citizens
D. They get nothing
4. “When refugees arrive in Britain they are not allowed to work.” Is this;
A. True
B. False
C. They are allowed to work in certain circumstances
5. The total number of asylum seekers who arrived in the UK in 2011 was what proportion of the UK’s
population:
A. 0.033%
B. 0.14%
C. 0.33%
D. 1.4%
E. 3.3%
6. What level of support does an asylum seeker who is a single person over 18 receive?
A. £36.62
B. £46.62
C. £56.62
D. £66.62
7. Which is the odd one out?
A. Andrex toilet tissue
B. Marks and Spencers shops
C. Haagen Daaz ice cream
D. Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity
8. As a proportion of it’s population, where is the UK ranked in terms of the number of refugees it has
compared to other countries in Europe
A. it has more refugees than all of them
B. It has more refugees than most of them
C. It has
about the same number
D. It has less refugees than most of them E. It has les refugees than all of
them
9. Which of these stories/quotes is made up?
A. The Dover Express called asylum seekers “human sewage”.
B. The Daily Sport said “kick out foreign scum”.
C. “The way stateless Jews from Germany are pouring in …is becoming an outrage” (Daily Mail 1938)
D. “Why do we let in this army of spongers?…So many asylum seekers are pouring into this country…to
milk the system” (Daily Mail 1998)
E. The Daily Express said “a lot of refugees are fleeing from terror and persecution; we should give them a
safe haven.”
10. What does the word refugee mean?
___________________________________________________________________________________
Sheet F
12
What do you know about refugees?
Quiz Answers – teachers notes
1.
Afghanistan and Somalia - most of the countries that refugees come to the UK from are those that are
suffering from war or repression; you may have heard about these on the news. More recently there are
more from Syria due to the war there. Other countries which are high on the list include China, Zimbabwe,
Iran and Turkey.
2.
Asia has the most refugees (38% of total). The other areas with the most refugees are Africa (32%) and the
Middle East. Most people don’t realise that 8 out of 10 refugees flee from one poor country to go to
another, for example 1.6 million Afghan refugees still live in Pakistan.
3.
C. They get less.
4.
A. True They are not allowed to work.
5.
A. 0.033% - there were 19,865 applications in 2011
6.
A. £36.62 – in comparison normal income support is £56.80 for those aged 18-24 and £71.70 for those aged
over 25.
7.
C. Haagen Daaz ice cream. All the others were created or invented by people who were once refugees – and
named after these people. Haagen Daaz is a made up name.
8.
D. 7th Most other western European have more refugees per head of the population. Germany, Sweden,
France, the Netherlands and Austria all have more. Italy and Belguim have less. The UK does attract some
refugees due to language and the long term presence of other people from the same ethnic background.
9.
E is the correct answer but focus on answer C – do pupils think that Jews fleeing Hitler’s Germany should
have been allowed into the UK?
10.
The UN defines a refugee as someone who has had to leave his or her country due to “a well-founded fear of
being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group or political opinion”.
An example is that under the Taliban government in Afghanistan teachers were not allowed to teach girls
and women – to do so risked imprisonment and worse.
Sheet F - ANSWERS
13
Sheet G
Two Newspaper articles
In pairs read each extract from these two different newspaper articles.
Discuss and agree:


The year it might have been written
The groups of people you think it has been written about.
“The problem is that these people are rubbish in their own country and they come over here; they bring
nothing except problems; they have no interest in learning about us or our ways; they just live among their
own”.
SCRUFFY LAZY ______
What do you think of them? Go to the airport any day and look at them arriving on the flights. They pour out
of the planes.
They don’t exactly bring a load of money into our economy – half of them are penniless old people coming
to visit their sons or daughters here, or wives and children coming to join their husbands who’ve working
here for years.
STINK AND MESS
Have you got near them? They really must stink! According to the statistics they only take a bath once a
fortnight.
Their economy is in a mess. They can’t make money, they have no jobs at home, so they come over here
to mess up our economy and to take our jobs. And why is there so much unemployment in their own
country? Because they’re a lazy lot, who don’t want to work. Well, let them be warned they won’t be
allowed to live on social security here.
BORING AND APATHETIC
Their women are cold and boring; their men are rude and pathetic. And when it comes to a war, what will
they do? We can’t rely on them. Look at their history – they’ve never won a war without the help of other
countries armies.
Well readers, what do YOU think of these _________ who keep coming here? Should we let them into
__________ at all?
14
Sheet H
What do the newspapers say about
young people?
New law to help
oust violent pupils
Daily Mail 9.7.01
Put unruly
teenagers in the
stocks…
Daily Telegraph 7.6.02
Age of the
young crook
Daily Mail 2.4.05
VANDALISM AND
ROWDY KIDS
PROBLEM
Drunken teens
blight the area
Isle of Man Today online 24.3.05
Sheffield Star 8.3.05
…neighbours are driven to
misery by teenagers who
create mayhem late at night…
Teen gang banned
from McDonalds
Daily Mail 9.5.02
Birmingham Post 29.4.02
15
Sheet I
What do the newspapers say about refugees?
Asylum Seekers
ate our Donkeys
Daily Star 21.8.03
Our town’s too nice for
refugees… they will try
to escape, rapists and
thieves will terrorise us
Daily Express 23.3.02
Bogus refugees
treated better than
UK citizens
Britain is top
asylum haven
Daily Mail 2.2.02
Bombers are all
sponging asylum
seekers
Daily Express 27.7.2005
The Sun 18.2.02
…we resent the scroungers,
beggars and crooks who are
prepared to cross every
country in Europe to reach
our generous benefits
system
The Sun 7.3.01
16
Swan Baked
Asylum seekers are
stealing and eating swans
The Sun 4.7.2003
Sheet J
What do the newspapers say about
refugees?- TEACHERS NOTES
Asylum Seekers
ate our Donkeys
Daily Star 21.8.03
Swan Baked
The Sun 4.7.2003
These 3 headlines were simply not true. The stories
about swans and donkeys being eaten by refugees
were made up but were front page news. The article
about the 7 July bombers was inaccurate - the identity
of the bombers was unknown when the story was
written and neither of the men mentioned in the story
was an asylum-seeker anyway.
Bombers are all
sponging asylum
seekers
Daily Express 27.7.2005
…we resent the scroungers,
beggars and crooks who are
prepared to cross every
country in Europe to reach
our generous benefits
system
The Sun 7.3.01
Britain is top
asylum haven
Daily Mail 2.2.02




Asylum seekers are only entitled to
benefits of less than 70% of normal
income support
Asylum seekers are not allowed to
work for 6 months after making an
asylum application; this means they
have to rely on support even if they
have skills and are keen to work

Two thirds of the worlds
refugees are in Africa or
Asia
The UK hosts less than
1.8% of the world’s
refugees
The UK ranks 7th in
Europe
17
Other resources
www.refugeeweektimeline.org.uk/ interactive timeline created for Refugee Week
www.refugeeweek.org.uk - go to info centre and then educational resources for lots of other ideas and links to
useful websites.
http://www.redcross.org.uk/Tags/Refugees-?cts=teachingresources some excellent photo based teaching ideas
from the Red Cross
http://www.redcross.org.uk/What-we-do/Teaching-resources/Teaching-packages/Positive-Images/RefugeeWeek-2012 assembly and lesson plan for Refugee Week 2012 – suitable for upper KS2 and KS3
http://learn.christianaid.org.uk/TeachersResources/primary/primaryassembly_jun08.aspx assembly for KS2
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01k7c4q “Seeking Refuge” Five animated stories of young people who
have sought refuge in the UK, told by the children themselves – also teaching resources in the related links
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/resources/activity-pack-seeking-safety 8 activities for primary classes to explore
asylum
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpwqK3B2ac8 “To be a refugee” UNHCR video – introduces the concepts of
refugees and aimed at Primary
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmkkrkwWQFg UNHCR video – one million Syrian refugees from 2013
www.playagainstallodds.ca online game from UNHCR that allows players to experience the different barriers
that a refugee must pass through – suitable for secondary
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