My reflection and thoughts regarding the Syrian refugees living in Australia and their future liminal learning space.
https://www.emaze.com/@AICRCIOC/children
Reference
Widescreen Wallpapers. (2015). Sunrise. [digital image]. Retrieved from http://wide-wallpapers.net/tags/spring-wide-wallpapers/
The Future ?? The future is unknown for all of us. We may have an idea what we want our futures to be but the outcome can only unfold as we live our lives. As present –day Australians our future generally feels safe and secure. We have a notion that whatever path we take we will have a reasonable life, a free life where we can go about our lives without fear. Most of us will attend school and get a level of education which will lead to employment that will support ourselves and our families, and if we are unable to work the Government will support us until such time as we can find employment. We are truly blessed to be living in such a wonderful country.
What is the future for the refugees arriving in Australia for resettlement ? The future is still undeterminable however a future in Australia will have hope and prospects for the future compared to a life in war-torn Syria and the surrounding countries where there is no future, no hope, no prospects in the immediate and possibly foreseeable future. Education will lend itself to helping the refugees assimilate into the Australian way of life, it will help to gain employment, it will help to educate refugee youth to gain knowledge and skills for their futures in Australia. Australia is a multi-cultural society built up of people from many different countries. People have moved to Australia for many years to seek a new life, a safe and secure future for themselves and their families. With them they have brought their education capital, their culture and shared these in their newfound communities. Life and education becomes reciprocal with refugees and present Australians benefiting from each other by continuing to enrich the multi-cultural society that Australia is. The Syrian refugees will be no different. In time they will also share their culture and experiences further enriching the Australian way of life.
It is incredibly sad that the refugees have had to flee their homeland due to war and conflict to stay alive. Coming to Australia does give them a future free from war although there must be a sadness that comes with moving, many what if moments … What if there were no war ? What if war stops can we return to Syria to live ? Moving and resettling in a foreign country will be a transformative mindset, one of change, one of adaptation. Some will embrace this change and some will find it very hard to cope with the differences between the countries. With time, and probably a long time, the refugees will begin to assimilate into their new communities and start to live again in peace. With support from the Australian government and charitable organisations and local community groups the pieces of their future learning space jigsaw will come together and become peace and not pieces of a once shattered life.
“Despite [the refugees’] trials and tribulations, they have hope and they have aspirations,” reflects Peter Vardos, Australian Immigration department deputy secretary speaking of the refugees coming to Australia (McNeill, 2015). With hope a bright and happy future will evolve but it will take time.
Reference
Marantz. M. (2012). The Future is Ours. [digital image]. Retrieved from http://newgrids.fr/2012/06/27/the-future-is-ours/
McNeill. S. (2015, October, 12). Syrian crisis: Australian Immigration officials offer glimpse of hope in Jordan’s sprawling Zaatari refugee camp. ABC News. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-12/australian-immigration-department-heads-have-met-with-unhcr-off/6845618
The educators to aid and support the Syrian Refugees in Australia will be varied and not necessarily trained teachers. The refugees will need assistance to assimilate into the Australian way of life and will need education to know how to complete everyday tasks that we as Australians take for granted from shopping to opening a bank account.
Families that have offered their homes to the refugees will be educators. These families will assist familiarisation to occur so the refugees become part of the community and have a sense of worth and belonging. Living with an Australian family will have so many benefits. “[The refugees] need to know about schools and culture and it [the home stay] will help them learn about that and be supported by that rather than living in a flat on their own,” said Ms Goodrich and Mr Rundle, one of the many families opening their homes to the Syrian refugees to live in (Williamson, 2015).
Australia is a multi-cultural country and each and every refugee who comes to resettle here will bring with them an education capital, their culture and knowledge, and will share this with present Australians to enrich their lives also. Education between present Australians and the refugees can and should be a reciprocal affair. Reciprocity is vital for shared knowledge enriching our lives and giving the refugees their integrity back, allowing them to feel valued and welcomed into our communities.
Other educators will be needed to teach or retrain adults to allow them to gain employment to support their families and again feel value in the community. The refugee children will have the need to learn knowledge and so will attend local schools.
Resettlement will take time but with education, empathy and support, the refugees’ lives will change from a place of trauma, a bleak liminal space, to one of hope with a future.
References
Associated Press. (2015). Apple on books. [digital image]. Retrieved from http://www.kake.com/home/headlines/Kansas-legislature-creates-education-study-committee-324084211.html
Picpulp. (2014). [digital image]. Retrieved from http://picpulp.com/nelson-mandela-quotes/
Williamson. B. (2015, September, 22). Syrian refugee crisis: Adelaide parents open their family home to welcome first of 12,000 new arrivals. ABC News. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-21/syrian-refugee-crisis-adelaide-parents-open-home-for-arrivals/6791738
Education for the Syrian refugees coming to Australia for resettlement won’t simply be about arriving here and settling into a community. They have had a massive upheaval from their original home in extremely tragic circumstances. They have had to travel to and live in refugee camps and now they are travelling to a foreign country, a liminal space, a space that will be unfamiliar and undeniably overwhelming and traumatic for both adults and children. Their future is unknown and liminal in nature. Education will provide hope for a better future.
Education will range from learning simple everyday tasks like using the telephone or shopping. It will be gaining or retraining skills to be employed to provide for their families. It will be about learning a new language and coping with the emotional distress of dealing with change and adapting to a new way of life. Education will be an on-going concern, a transitional stage from the refugee state of being to becoming a citizen in the community where life will slowly become settled and where a future is foreseeable. This transition will take a long time.
Education will need to be provided to support the refugees to cope with many aspects of their new life including:
Employment
– acknowledging and utilising skills, knowledge, expertise, prior employment
– retraining
– applying for employment
Formal education
– Many children have had no formal education
Community education into the Australian’s way of life
– learning to speak and understand English
– attaining the level of spoken English and literacy needed to successfully move into mainstream education and training or into employment (Refugee Council of Australia, 2011)
– enrolment of Centrelink
– enrolment in Medicare
– banking
– accessing the internet
– shopping
– accessing services ie doctors, dentists, schools, hairdressers
– how to use and access public transport
– accessing sporting clubs, arts and crafts outlets, entertainment options
Emotional support
– providing counselling services to educate and support refugees to transition from a refugee situation to an Australian way of life
References
Hasham. N. (September, 9). Syrian Family. [digital image]. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/syrian-refugees-in-australia–where-will-they-go-20150909-gjiek1.html
Refugee Council of Australia. (2011). Facts sheets. Education and Training. Retrieved from http://www. refugeecouncil.org.au/fact-sheets/settlement-issues/education-and-training/
Education is vital for the refugees, both adult and child. Education will help to assimilate the refugees into Australia’s way of life, retrain them to acquire employment, and extend their prior knowledge for future possibilities.
Each refugee, regardless of age, will have an education capital. What this is needs to be accessed and utilised for the refugees’ benefit and for the further enrichment of the Australian culture. Australia is forever evolving, becoming more and more multi-cultural. With every refugee family introduced and welcomed into Australia comes with them their culture, their cuisine and their way of life. All of this infiltrates into the Australian society to continue to enrich it.
Refugees have lived normal lives, working and supporting their families prior to their expulsion from their homes and country. Their education capital needs to be explored as many already have been educated, taught skills and have many talents that can aid their transition into a community but also aid the community itself.
Reference
Lettre de Paris (2015). Syrian girl. [digital image]. Retrieved from http://lettredeparis.com/2013/11/30/refugees-the-lost-generation/
There are many educational facilities created to support refugees who come to Australia for resettlement. After much reading I have great respect for the following humanitarian and educational facilities:
* AMES Australia
* Australian Red Cross
AMES Australia
AMES Australia was created in 1951 to provide English to new settlers in Australia. It has continued to grow to ‘provide settlement, education and training and employment services to culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) clients’ (AMES, 2015).
AMES Australia will be working with these Syrian refugees who arrive in Victoria. AMES Australia HSS (Humanitarian Settlement Services) Consortium and DIAC (Department of Immigration and Citizenship) are working together to provide assistance, support and education to the Syrian refugees who will be arriving in Victoria, Australia.
AMES Australia provides many services for the refugees. Clients are assessed to determine their needs and then catered for accordingly. They build upon a client’s existing strength to help them settle into a community (AMES, 2015). AMES has many services that provide assistance to refugees. One of these is ‘Essential Registrations’ which connects clients with essential services including education and language assistance or financial support (AMES, 2015). Another program which is used to educate refugees is the ‘Orientation Program’ which aims to teach clients basic life skills towards being able to independently support themselves in the community.
The Australian Red Cross
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement was created to ‘bring assistance without discrimination to the wounded on the battlefield, endeavours, in its international and national capacity, to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found. Its purpose is to protect life and health and ensure respect for the human being. It promotes mutual understanding, friendship, co-operation and lasting peace amongst all people’ (ARC, 2015).
The ARC’s philosophy ‘believes that everyone deserves the right to dignity and respect.’ (ARC, 2015) The ARC provides the refugees access to medical, housing and necessary services. The educational facilities the ARC provides offer support to families to enable their children to attend local schools in their new communities. They also offer group support educational sessions to teach refugees about finding accommodation, setting up and accessing bank accounts and utilising government agencies and services (ARC, 2015).
Another excellent educational service the ARC provides refugees is a drop-in centre found in every capital city called ‘The Hub’. The Hub is a centre available to refugees for them to visit to help with the resettlement into their new communities. The Hubs are manned by ARC workers who listen to the refugees’ needs, informing them about programs and services that are available in their area, and connecting them with their new community (ARC, 2015).
References
AMES Australia. (2015). AMES logo.[digital image]. Retrieved from https://www.ames.net.au/research-and-policy/research.html
AMES Australia. (2015). Services we Provide. Retrieved from http://www.ames.net.au/humanitarian-settlement-services/services-we-provide.html
Australian Red Cross. (2015). ARC logo. [digital image]. Retrieved from http://www.redcross.org.au/annualreport_2013/
Australian Red Cross. (2015). Asylum seekers and refugees. Migration Support. Retrieved from http://www.redcross.org.au/asylum-seekers.aspx
Australian Red Cross. (2015). Principles. Retrieved from http://www.redcross.org.au/principles.aspx
My chosen liminal space is the Syrian refugees in Australia. The Australian Government has granted entry into Australia for 12000 refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq for resettlement in Australia. The refugees will begin arriving in Australia by the end of 2015. A complex undertaking, but it is a necessary humanitarian one. There needs to be highly organised approach from the initial arrival of the refugees into Australia to housing, educating and employing them to providing emotional and psychological assistance. All contingencies need to be covered in order to support the refugees as they leave the refugee camps and begin a new life in Australia. All the refugees, adults and children, need to be supported so they can assimilate into and pledge allegiance to the national way of life and laws. (Henderson. A. 2015).
Is this a liminal space ? I can think of no other space more worthy of being called liminal. This is the epitome of the liminal space, of transition from the well-known to the abyss of the absolute unknown. For Australians to comprehend this liminal space is impossible. We can only imagine what the refugees have had to endure: how they have lived through war, witnessed devastation, destruction and loved ones killed and injured, how they have been forced from your home and familiar surroundings in order to survive and then travel thousands of kilometres to find a place of safety in the refugee camps where life exists in limbo as they wait for their real future to begin; and how they will cope living in a country where English is unfamiliar, and assimilate into the Australian community with their families.
Reference
Henderson. A. (2015, September, 9). Asylum seeker intake explained: Who will come to Australia under the Government’s plan ?. ABC News. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-09/refugee-intake-plan-who-will-come-to-australia/6762278
McNeill. S. (2015, October, 12). Syrian children with koalas. [digital image]. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-12/more-kids-in-zaatarijpg/6845844
http://vrse.works/clouds-over-sidra/
Although I have been teaching a very long time I feel completely out of my depth to constructively consider how to unlock education in the absolute desperate liminal spaces of the Za’atari refugee camp. As a teacher in Australia everything is laid out for us. Interestingly we complain about the lack of resources, minimal teacher-aide hours, being over-worked for little pay and more. Watching ‘Clouds over Sidra’ was unbelievable. So incredibly sad! I wonder how the education system works there and how the teachers manage? Do children voluntarily attend school? What is the curriculum there? What is held important to teach these children?
My first, possibly naïve, thoughts would be to teach survival skills. The camp is seen as temporary but these children are going to grow up, become adults with their own families, so they need to learn facts, concepts and skills to acquire employment. Everyone has the right to learn. The curriculum would have to be geared towards a future. What is their future? How long will the refugees live in the Za’atari camp? Sidra has been there 18 months. On the surface it looks normal with children attending school, playing, interacting with each other but their life is not normal. This reality came home hard at the end of the video with Sidra sitting on her bed crying and saying, “I think living being here a year and a half has been long enough. I will not be twelve forever and I will not be in Za’atari forever. My teacher says the clouds moving over us also came here from Syria. Some day the clouds and me are going to turn around and go back home.” She wants a future. She wants a normal life again so education is a way to provide hope, to encourage learning, to provide for their future when they get out of the refugee camp and go back to living a normal existence again.
References
Disco VR. (2015). Sidra. [digital image]. Retrieved from http://www.disco-vr.com/
Milk. C. (2015). Clouds over Sidra. [digital image]. Retrieved from http://vrse.works/clouds-over-sidra/
My EDFD459 Assignment 2 e-presentation: Learning Spaces
https://www.emaze.com/@AIRWOZOT/presentation-name 
Reference
Falkner, K. (2012). Learning spaces wordle [digital image]. Retrieved from http://blogs.adelaide.edu.au/cser/2012/10/23/paper-accepted-for-sigcse-2013-collaborative-learning-and-anxiety/
References
Di Nunzio. L.M. (2015). Liminal Space. [digital image]. Retrieved from http://www.pritistudio.com/2015/03/liminal-space_15.html
Flickr Hive Mind. (2015). Liminal Space. [digital image]. http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/handlettering,quotes
The latest news on WordPress.com and the WordPress community.
EVOLVING
Limitless
where one can find and share inspirational ideas
Chantel Borke
The latest news on WordPress.com and the WordPress community.
EVOLVING
Limitless
where one can find and share inspirational ideas
Chantel Borke
rayew 