Go Back takes the asylum-seeker debate into schools

28 Aug 2012, 9:38 am   -   Source: SBS
Share This
0 
+ Comment
10
The 'Go Back to Where You Came From' School Pack aims to engage young Australians in a deeper understanding of refugee issues. (SBS)

The 'Go Back to Where You Came From' School Pack aims to engage young Australians in a deeper understanding of refugee issues. (SBS)

SBS, Amnesty International and the Refugee Council of Australia have partnered to create a free school resource pack to promote greater understanding of asylum-seeker experiences.

Go Back sparks asylum debate

The SBS MP3 Player requires the Adobe Flash 8 Plugin. You can get Flash from here...

RELATED

As the debate over asylum seeker policy and refugee issues is again in focus, SBS has partnered with Amnesty International and the Refugee Council of Australia to deliver a free education resource to all secondary schools across the country.

The Go Back to Where You Came From School Pack provides educational activities that aim to engage students with a deeper understanding of the complexity of refugee life and seeking asylum.

“Go Back to Where You Came From provides unique insight into a topic so often taken over by political campaigning and media headlines,” says SBS Outreach Executive Bindi Newman.

“This unique collaborative education initiative helps take this important discussion beyond television screens and into classrooms around the country in an engaging and accessible way.”

Despite Australia’s efforts to resettle more than 9,000 refugees in 2011, a figure that contributed to more than 11 per cent of the global total, research shows Australians lack sympathy towards refugees who come to Australia by boat.

To help younger Australians understand the issue of refugees in Australia, the School Pack contains practical activities that are supported by fact sheets, links to additional information and case studies.

Students will be able to engage in interactive tutorials, watch video clips and access teachers' notes on the SBS Go Back to Where You Came From website.

“We have created practical activities to help students understand the facts that are so often absent from Australia’s refugee debate. It is vital that young people get the opportunity to learn more about the human right to seek asylum and the reasons why people are forced to seek safety and protection,” says Amnesty International refugee campaigner, Alex Pagliaro.

Refugee Council of Australia spokesperson Andrew Williams says the initiative is an important step in educating Australians about human rights and a way to remind people to act compassionately towards “our fellow citizens of the world.”

In the second instalment of the multi award-winning documentary series, Go Back to Where You Came From, six prominent Australians – Angry Anderson, Peter Reith, Catherine Deveny, Imogen Bailey, Michael Smith and Allan Asher – risk their lives to experience the reality of refugee life, as they embark on an extraordinary and confronting three week journey.

The Go Back to Where You Came From documentary series will be broadcast over three nights on August 28-30 on SBS ONE at 8:30 PM.

A special live Insight program on Friday August 31 at 8:30 PM on SBS ONE will feature the six participants and a studio audience to talk about the series and what they think should be done about people arriving by boat.

Visit the Go Back Facebook page

Follow #GoBackSBS on Twitter via @SBSDocumentary

Refugees , Asylum-seekers

  • Follow us: 
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Youtube

Your Comments

Display: 20 | 40 | All comments per page
Previous 10 | Page 1 | Next 10

Harden up

Andrew - from hervey bay, 9 months ago

To all those people who think we have it tough .... We have homeless on the streets people like to forget about (but we have at least basic governmental help and great volunteer efforts) I dont want to sound harsh to people doing it tough, but centerlink benfits are amazing, we are blessed beyond belief. (its enough to buy basic food and cheap rent) Now if you think the above compares with what refugees suffer... travel, go see what real hunger and homelessness is. i cant convince you with words

vicious circle

Raylene - from Bunbury, WA, 9 months ago

Perhaps if America would mind its own business & stop interfereing in other countries affairs (usually with its own agenda in mind) and fuelling violence, hatred and wars to suit its own needs, there would be less civil wars, less sensless violence, less suffering and less refugees.

Unbelievable

MJ - from Melbourne, 9 months ago

So suddenly Australia should be the white night for the world. Many need to grow up and take the rose coloured glasses off, this is life. To it is your fault, im utterly embarrassed you are an Australian citizen, how about you take your ideals down to the local homeless shelters and provide them some food and help them out, and try pointing the blame at our red gov, they are the ones who are providing a free for all to come here illegally. Your comments are disgraceful!

God help our country

LC - from NSW, 9 months ago

So very disturbing seeing the number of disagrees against those comments who believe our AUS citizens come first. Is it acceptable to continue to spend BILLIONS that we do not have on providing homes, financial support, defence resources on illegals yet we have our very own AUS who lost so everything in the floods including their lives, gov didn not prov anywhere near same they do illegals but instead burdened us with a levy, where is the fairness? Im ashamed of you. God help Australia

Have you no decency?

Amil - from Sydney, 9 months ago

Today marks four years since my family was blown up in Afghanistan- beheaded because of religion. I am an orphan. I am growing up without my parents, nor my siblings. My distant Aunt took me to Australia. Am I not a person too? Am I not equal to you? Today in school people were throwing things at me calling "queue jumper". I sat in a rotting prison for almost 2 years. In the dead of the night, everything is rushed, we have no time to find papers, grenades were going off in the backyard. Decency?

It is your fault they keep coming

John - from Melbourne, 9 months ago

Re: Steph from Magil, SA Your argument is to the same affect as; You are eating dinner in front of a starving Somalian child and you will not give that child any of your food because you're not full yet. If there are any scraps left once you've had your fill then and only then will the starving child eat. And the only reason you'll let him starve is because he wasn't born in the same place you were. If you helped them they wouldn't need to risk their lives to get here.

We are all human

John - from Melbourne, 9 months ago

"Protect our own" yes I agree, but I don't see it the way some do. Great foundations are needed for a great world, every intelligent person will agree. At the core of us we are the universe "We are stardust, we are golden" Joni Mitchell. Then we are living beings, then we are humans, then we are individuals. It is only through seeking identity and belong that we label ourselves by matters (out of our control) such as the place we were born. So protect our own yes. As living beings. As humans.

Charity Starts in the Home

Steph - from Magill, SA, 9 months ago

Let me see if I have this right... we're going to borrow more money and increase our national debt to provide for those who would like to come to our country and draw upon our resources and jobs for free? I say until we have have 0% unemployment, and $0 in national debt, we don't go throwing around our resources into charities designed to appease the Greens' agendas, and so the government can stay in power by doing dirty deals with independents and Green politicians who represent the minority.

Fed Up

LG - from Brisbane, 9 months ago

This iritates me beyond belief, we have homeless people on the street we have elderly struggling to live on what they have (barely a cent) yet we as Australians turn our backs on them and happily thow money at illegal arrivals. It is disgusting, i am sick of Australia thinking it will lead the way with its hippy idreas and beliefs, fact is we can not save everyone from the big bad world so how about we start focusing on what we can and that is our own legal citizens.

Somali refugees

Naz - from Brisbane, 9 months ago

It pains me to see people making such heartless comment about refugees , I think it's disgusting. Somali people don't get an enjoyment out of being destitute, devastation and surviving on a dog food hand outs from the west. The issue here is that not enough is being done by the developed world to support countries like somalia to form a strong government of their own. I don't blame Australians who want to 'protect' their country and would rether not see refugees pollute their cities.

Display: 20 | 40 | All comments per page
Previous 10 | Page 1 | Next 10

Join the Discussion

Name
City / Suburb E.g. Artarmon, Sydney
Title
Comment
You have characters remaining.
Validation
What's this?
This is a captcha-picture. It is used to prevent mass-access by robots.
All submitted comments become the property of SBS. They are moderated, so we reserve the right to edit comments and remove HTML tags. Not all submitted comments will be published. Publication does not mean we endorse the opinions expressed. Please read our terms and conditions for more information.