Migration Tales – Refugee Week 2020
What would make someone leave their home, their loved ones, and everything they know? How do you begin to build a new life after that?
These are just some of the questions that we help young people explore in our new writing resource to mark Refugee Week 2020, which takes place virtually for the first time from 15th – 21st June.
A UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees, Refugee Week is also is also a growing global movement and Ministry of Stories is proud to support its mission of promoting positive encounters between communities, helping them to connect and learn from each other.
Ministry of Stories Programme Leader and poet Laila Sumpton worked with poet and educator, Mohammed Yahya to create a resource to help young people investigate stories of migration and those seeking refuge. Young writers will be able to create their own poetry inspired by song lyrics and explore stories of migration and exile through poetry, song and rap.
The pack contains activities that will support learners to:
• define refugees and migrants
• analyse song lyrics and rhyme patterns
• write a new poem or song about the push and pull factors for refugees and migrants
The central writing activity is around creating a poetry dialogue between two family members: one of whom wants to leave their home country and the other who wants them to stay.
Ministry of Stories young writers (aged 10-15) from Hackney, Islington and Tower Hamlets took part in our Migration Tales Summer Writing Club in August 2019 and tested all of these activities, producing incredible poems with backing tracks which you can listen to here.
Here are 6 more ways you can get involved with Refugee Week, and further ideas and activities for children and young people.
With thanks to Counterpoints Arts.
