To know and understand an issue, we believe you must connect and care about that issue. This is why Project Home starts with stories of individual refugee children. We invite you to join us as we connect and care through our explorations of the issues pertaining to refugees.
What is Project Home?
Project Home is a series of explorations centered around refugees created by the Rock Your World Team which was supported by a grant from Newman’s Own Foundation.
When creating these explorations, we followed the model of our existing curriculum which is to guide users through a process of starting with one story, generating questions in response to that story, engaging in a process of inquiry, and finally reflecting and making plans to take creative action.
Rock Your World is a program that is grounded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Violations of human rights are inextricable from the issues pertaining to refugees. Exploration 1 in Project Home begins with a single story--that of Malak, a seven year old girl who had to flee Syria with her family when war broke out. The further we delved into our exploration of Malak, the more we came to understand that human rights are central to all refugees.
Who Should Use Project Home?
Project Home is for students and teachers at the middle and high school levels and can be used as part of a unit of study, as an enrichment, as an independent exploration, or as an activity for individuals or groups.
How Should We Use Project Home?
We wrote Project Home in order to model an authentic inquiry around refugees. Project Home has a conversational tone because we wanted to capture a nuanced and original exploration process.
Explorations 1-4 demonstrate the twists and turns of an authentic search into the issues pertaining to refugees.
Exploration 5 was designed to support your own inquiries.
Exploration 6 facilitates steps for how to take action regarding the knowledge gleaned from personal explorations.
We invite you to read and follow along, engaging with our inquiry with us as it unfolds . Or, if you’re inclined, you can begin your own inquiry with Exploration 5, using Explorations 1-4 as a separate model.
Before You Begin
Before you begin, it might be helpful to review these terms which you will encounter throughout the Project Home Explorations.
According to Amnesty International:
Refugee: A refugee is a person who has fled their own country because they are at risk of serious human rights violations and persecution there. The risks to their safety and life were so great that they felt they had no choice but to leave and seek safety outside their country because their own government cannot or will not protect them from those dangers. Refugees have a right to international protection.
Asylum-seeker:
An asylum-seeker is a person who has left their country and is seeking protection from persecution and serious human rights violations in another country, but who hasn’t yet been legally recognized as a refugee and is waiting to receive a decision on their asylum claim. Seeking asylum is a human right. This means everyone should be allowed to enter another country to seek asylum.
Migrant:
There is no internationally accepted legal definition of a migrant. Like most agencies and organizations, we at Amnesty International understand migrants to be people staying outside their country of origin, who are not asylum-seekers or refugees. Some migrants leave their country because they want to work, study or join family, for example. Others feel they must leave because of poverty, political unrest, gang violence, natural disasters or other serious circumstances that exist there.
Lots of people don’t fit the legal definition of a refugee but could nevertheless be in danger if they went home.
It is important to understand that, just because migrants do not flee persecution, they are still entitled to have all their human rights protected and respected, regardless of the status they have in the country they moved to. Governments must protect all migrants from racist and xenophobic violence, exploitation and forced labor. Migrants should never be detained or forced to return to their countries without a legitimate reason.
Curriculum Enrichment Lessons
