20th June is World Refugee Day.
I had to work at school on this day this week as I was engaged in the first formal meetings for getting started with secondary school exams in Italy but I could not forget I had planned to watch an interesting webinar online which has to do with children learning English in some areas where people are suffering today. Some people are lucky while others just survive or live in the camps and hope to escape and find a better life in some countries in Europe or Canada and the USA.
Before watching the webinar I checked online and could find the first link to this special day which is promoted by the United Nations Organization:
http://www.un.org/en/events/refugeeday/
First of all, I think that we should work on the issue at school and get our students to work together to learn about the rights of men , women and children whose life is at risk while we are living in peaceful countries.
Here are the main hashtags which are aimed at informing us and which we need to make well-known.
Tweet riguardo #WorldRefugeeDay
Tweet riguardo #WithRefugees
THE HANDSUPPROJECT - A PROJECT ABOUT TELLING STORIES AND LANGUAGE ONLINE FOR YOUNG LEARNERS IN REFUGEE CAMPS.
The webinar I saw was based on the presentation of an interesting project https://handsupproject.org
which is run by Nick Blibrough.
In particular ,Nick presented some work carried out thanks to the use of modern technology: it is an engaging activity in which Russian children interact with children from Gaza: what was amazing was to see they way they interacted in English. It was wonderful !
The webinar was presented in the CPD session of the British Council http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/nick-bilbrough-zooming-out . It was engaging and interesting as children were really loving doing English and they were forgetting what they had experienced. They were just kids learning online and getting engaged in working online with other children.
The recorded session is online , just follow the link provided in the above-mentioned web page.
OTHER ACTIVITIES TO RAISE FUNDS FOR THE REFUGEES
Songs are now reminding us that too many children and families are " RUNNING", trying to escape the poor and sad conditions of life they have because of war and unbelievable conditions of life:
I am sharing it hoping that more will try to support those who help the refugees.
