Inspired to work with refugees

Guest blog, written by: 
Liz Hibberd MA | BA | PGCE, Education Consultant & Freelance Trainer, Refugee Integration and Support Specialist / Development Assistant, Manchester City of Sanctuary
 
We are really pleased that Liz has written this blog for our project. 
If you would like to contact Liz about her work with refugees and asylum seekers, her email is:  lizhibberd@yahoo.co.uk
 

A change of direction

Since September 2016, I’ve been working with refugees and asylum seekers. It started fairly slowly, I had some time between modules on my MA course so I decided to volunteer in the ‘Jungle’ in Calais. Those 2 months had a real impact on me and ultimately changed the course of my working life. After volunteering with the women and children the first time, I ended up volunteering with refugees that had arrived in Manchester, where I now live. I supported them to integrate and access services in their new home, help find out what their next goals were and how to reach them. Alongside that work, I began to channel this focus into the work I did at University College London (UCL), managing to link my former role as a primary teacher to the work I was interested in now.

The School Bus Project in Calais

Building teacher confidence

My thesis analysed how confident teachers felt engaging in this topic and whether they felt able to discuss it and teach their students about it. Whilst it wasn’t unanimous, there was a large proportion of the teachers interviewed and who completed my survey that did not feel confident despite appreciating the need to do so. This was partly due to a lack of awareness and understanding of the issues and concern about how to integrate a sensitive and potentially controversial topic like this in to lessons. This is something I’m trying to work on now, by developing a series of training sessions that I can deliver to schools to introduce both teachers and students. Primarily to develop a more nuanced understanding of the myriad of layers that are involved in this area but also to make the arrival of refugee and asylum seeking children easier.

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Delivering training workshops in Greece

Putting theory into practical action

The refugee ‘crisis’ is unlikely to stop any time soon, so a joined up approach to managing those who arrive to ensure they have the support they need and are able to access services but also feel welcome and make friends is vital. This year, since completing my MA, I have spent another 2 months working on the ground in Calais again but also more recently Greece. I’ve worked with the refugees there as well as trained the volunteers that deliver programmes. We’ve focused a lot on understanding trauma and how to maximise resilience, one of the best ways of mitigating the negative impact of trauma.

How Global Learning helps us approach the refugee crisis constructively

One of the other things that I focus on both overseas and in the UK is understanding and viewing through other lenses, basically walking in other shoes.

To avoid ‘othering’ people who are ‘different’ and who ‘aren’t like us’ makes it easier to feel like we don’t have to do anything to help them. We can feel sorry for them and sad for what they experience, but this victim framing reduces refugees and asylum seekers to simply being the label that we have given them.

Global Learning and Development Education are key pedagogies that enable this insight, to critically question and appropriately challenge the status quo and begin the journey towards a greater understanding of the other and the removal of the ‘single story’ narrative.

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Contacts

Contact the author of this blog, Liz Hibberd:  lizhibberd@yahoo.co.uk
Safe Passage Community Mentor:  http://safepassage.org.uk 
Education and Training Lead - Refugee Children's Centres https://refugeechildrenscentres.org/
Your local Development Education Centre could help you, if you want to find out more.  https://globalclassrooms.org.uk/