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Seeking Safety: Lesson Plan for Promoting Understanding of Refugees

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Seeking Safety, developed by Amnesty International, provides an instructional resource for students 8-10 years old about refugee and asylum seekers. This lesson includes a brief informational section about the numbers of refugees in the world and differences in terminology, and discusses some of the reasons why someone may have to flee their country and become a refugee. Next, students watch a DVD about refugee children being welcomed into their host country, which is then followed up with a class discussion on promoting empathy and respect for others. The curriculum is then broken into several lesson plans that focus on topics such as myths about refugees and asylum seekers, history and experiences of refugees, similarities between different cultures around the world, why people become refugees, and others. The overarching message of this package is to introduce empathy, understanding, and appreciation for differences and similarities between refugee students and non-refugee students. Teachers are also provided with a guide on how to facilitate class discussions around each topic, as it may be difficult for some to approach in a respectful manner. Further, each section includes the primary learning goals, preparation considerations, and step-by-step instructions on the various activities and how to run each section of the lesson. Although the resource provides statistics and information regarding refugee policies in Scotland, the majority of the information could be generalized to teach students in other countries.