Events

University of Glasgow has issued an invitation to attend as a workshop leader, exhibitor or participant.

Humanitarian educators, charities and NGOs have been working on issues connected to crisis for decades, but the decision by the world’s media to use the photographic images of Aylan al-Kurdi in August 2015 brought about a distinct change in our collective humanitarian consciousness. The subsequent images from the Syrian Refugee Crisis have moved many to empathise and express a desire to show their support for refugees.

As a group of academic educators and parents we have been thinking about our own responses, actions and deeds in connection to this on-going situation. Collectively we have all wondered, what do we tell our children, what do we tell our students and what shall we do next? We understand that the issues are complex and that the answers are not easy to come by. Our initial response is the organisation of a one day event aimed at teachers and parents, so that we can think and plan together about what we could do next. This would also include how we might discuss such challenging issues with all children in school and at home.

This one day event will include:

• a range of speakers from organisations who have worked with refugees
• workshops that will look at how to create safe spaces in the home and classroom to discuss sensitive and difficult topics
• workshops that explore the issues that lie behind migration and define what it means to be a refugee
• workshops that look at how to turn empathy into purposeful action
• the launch of a website that includes practical examples of teachers looking at these issues
• the donation of books to the Mitchell Library for use in teaching these issues
• a networking space for organisations to share information