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Face the Facts (2008) Education Resource
Activity 1: What’s it like to be a refugee?
The following activities will help students to:
- identify reasons why people become refugees
- explore the circumstances in which refugees flee their homes
- encourage empathy with refugees
- promote understanding of the spontaneous exodus experienced by many fleeing their home countries
- encourage students to empathise with their flight
- foster debate about priorities in a survival situation.
Step 1
Working independently, students are encouraged to explore the meaning of the words ‘refugee’ and ‘asylum seeker’ and brainstorm the reasons why people might seek asylum and become refugees. A follow up discussion is useful here to assist students in developing an understanding of the concepts ‘refugee’ and ‘asylum seeker’.
Key questions to break down the definitions provided in Face the Facts could include:
Q: Are refugees the same as migrants?
Encourage students to explore this question by looking at push and pull factors that cause people to migrate. Push factors may cause people to leave their homelands while pull factors attract people to new countries. Explain that the push factors are more important for refugees than for migrants.
Q: Are refugees all people who flee from dangerous situations?
Assist students in understanding that while there are many reasons people may be forced to leave their homeland (for example war, or environmental disasters like floods or earthquakes), refugees are fleeing because of a well-founded fear of specific kinds of persecution related to their: race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
Teachers may wish to explore difficult terms like ‘well-founded fear’ (ie – there has to be a real chance of being persecuted) or ‘persecution’ (ie a serious punishment or some significant disadvantage inflicted by a government or by individuals or a group that the government cannot or will not control). Teachers may also wish to explore in more detail the five Convention reasons for fleeing persecution by providing specific individual or group examples. For example:
Race: Albert Einstein fleeing Nazi Germany in 1933
Religion: The Dalai Lama fleeing Tibet after the Chinese take-over in 1950
Nationality: Bosnian refugees from the former Yugoslavia Membership of a particular social group/ Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka after 1948
Political opinion: Lenin fleeing Tsarist Russia in 1900
Q: Who decides who is a refugee?
Refer to Face the Facts Question 3.1 – who are asylum seekers? and explore the concept of asylum pointing out:
- refugees seek asylum outside their country of usual residence or origin
- governments of individual countries and organisations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees determine who is a refugee
- everyone has a right to seek asylum from persecution – this is a fundamental human right set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 14)
- no country can forcibly return refugees to a territory where they face persecution – this is set out in Article 33 of the United Nations Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees and is known as the principle of ‘non-refoulement’.
Step 2
Divide students into small groups and ask them to create the story of an imaginary family who are seeking asylum using the factual information identified in the previous step as a starting point.
Encourage students to consider how the situation could occur and the circumstances which could lead to the decision to seek asylum in another country.
Depending on classroom objectives and resources, teachers may wish to explore first-person testimonies during this activity. There is a range of useful information available online including:
Road to Refuge: Developed by the BBC, this site explores the stories of refugees from around the world, using first-person testimonies and in-depth interviews. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2001/road_to_refuge/
Scattered People: Developed through a partnership between Lifeline Brisbane, the Refugee Claimants Support Centre, and Brisbane City Council, this site includes the stories of refugee claimants and their response to seeking asylum in Australia. http://brisbane-stories.powerup.com.au/scatteredpeople/
Step 3
After students select their reason for seeking asylum, each group undertakes the role play activity detailed below ‘Seeking Refuge - What will you take with you?’
Note: It may be wise to provide a sample small suitcase, or something of equal size, to minimise the ‘will it/won’t it fit’ arguments.
Seeking Refuge – What will you take with you?
1 You have half an hour before you must leave your home. Work out the list of things that you would like to take with you. All members of your group must agree about what’s on the list.
2 You are allowed to take one small suitcase with you. You cannot take anything that doesn’t fit. You cannot take anything that has to be carried separately. You cannot ask family members to carry anything for you. Revise the list of things so that it will fit in your suitcase. Everyone in your group must agree about what’s on the list.
3 After you have finalised your list, identify ONE item you would keep if you had to leave all else behind.
4 After your group has finalised your list, report back to the class on the situation you imagined which forced you to become a refugee and explain the items you have included on your list and why.
After completing their group lists, teachers facilitate compilation of a class list of items deemed most valuable by students divided into sections with headings such as ‘clothes’, ‘food’, ‘luxuries’.
Discuss making decisions under pressure, reasons for personal choices and emotions evoked by the decision-making process.
To consolidate understanding;
- re-introduce the meaning of the term ‘refugee’
- highlight the value of items that assist refugees to survive the trip and support a successful claim for asylum in a foreign country (items like threatening letters, newspaper articles, photographs or identity cards).
Step 4
Students work individually to create a more detailed story of their refugee family (using the lists that students have created and the scenario they imagined at the beginning of the activity).
This could include a written testimony, an imaginary diary of their journey to Australia, artwork, or an audio recording of their refugee’s story. Encourage students to research the stories of real asylum seekers to gather ideas.
