English News
8 E English - Seeking Refuge Unit
In Term 3 students studied a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts that demonstrated the journey and experiences of refugees and immigrants. They explored a range of texts in a variety of forms and considered how texts send different messages due to culture. Students composed their own texts using empathy to create realistic imaginative texts
This artwork has a lot of meaning behind it and symbolises the freedom that refugees don’t have. I have placed hands over the refugee’s mouth to show how we don’t give them a voice, and we don’t let them tell their own story to us and we don’t acknowledge it. Also, the “HELP!” on the shirt represents that they are trying to get our attention and let themselves be heard, but we still don’t listen. The “HELP!” is placed on an old ripped, worn-out shirt because they sell almost everything, and they are left with almost nothing left. They have nothing else to wear for around 2-3 weeks on an overcrowded boat, so it gets ripped and dirty. The Refugee also has a red, dirty face from sitting out in the sun for so long and from being on the dirty overcrowded boat. Finally the background, It represents all different things. The blue represents hope, the hope of a better future and to be heard. Red is for the sacrifices they have made, selling almost all of their belongings, their kids and sometimes their family. Lastly black represents the darkness of their situation and mental health, they would be feeling terrible and would be miserable from everything they have been through and still have ahead of them.
Ella Millard
7.12.1994
Dear Diary.
Tomorrow I am leaving home. Tomorrow I am leaving my family behind. Tomorrow I am leaving my culture behind. Tomorrow I am leaving my old life behind. These wars are heartbreaking and damaging. Every day people are on the streets, dead, I hear gunshots ringing in my ears in the middle of the night, I hear the cries of family members dying and in pain.
Afghanistan never used to be like this. Why is it now? I know it has something to do with the Taliban, they never used to be here, but mum tells me they recently moved to our country and she said something about how they are taking over. I used to love my country and everything as well as everyone in it, but that has all changed. I remember before the Taliban came I had so many wonderful memories of me with my family and friends eating all our yummy foods. One memory, in particular, was when mum let me invite my best friend ADELLA to our house for dinner on my birthday. Because it was such an occasion my mother made my favourite Afghanistan dishes. Mother made Mantu which is a Meat-filled dumpling steamed and topped with a sauce of yogurt, mint, lemon and garlic. It’s so good It’s like butter melting in my mouth. She also made Chorba which is an Afghanistan soup as well as Do Pyaza which is an onion based dish. Oh, that was a great night we laughed and ate for hours. What was amazing was that mum then let Adella come every Friday night for a feast. But that all stopped when the Taliban came. I stopped seeing my friend when the Taliban came; I didn’t even see her at school because I wasn’t allowed to go to school.
My father and mother have decided to send me to Australia, a foreign land, a place where my parents and I have never been to before. The worst part of all, my parents are not coming with me; they can not fit in the boat and they have to stay back and cover as I sneak away from my old life. My heart is in my head; it’s pounding, it’s aching. I feel so sad, I feel so stuck like I am in quicksand with no way out. I am leaving my family to die as half the country has already been taken over by the Taliban. My mind is racing 100 miles an hour, I feel as though I have a cheetah inside of me. I love my mother; I love my father; I love my home and I did love my country.
I am leaving to find hope, to seek shelter, to find a sense of security. My tears are a river of sorrow; my shakes are the fear of dying on the way. I am leaving behind the person I could have become. My mind is racing with thoughts about my new life, the life I am being forced into. Will I like the food? Will I miss home? Will I be accepted for my culture and the person I am? Will I be allowed to go to school and go shopping without my dad? Will I ever see my father and mother again? Will I like my new country?
I want to strive in life, I want to make my parents proud. Tomorrow is the day I die or tomorrow is the day I become free. I am ready. I know it's what's right. I love my mother and I love my father and I know they want this for me and they would never think twice, they would never endanger me.
I pray to Allah that I find freedom. I pray to Allah I will see my parents face again and I pray to God one day I will see Adeela again. I pray to God that this sick feeling will go away.
This sick feeling of guilt.
Natalia Salvestro
Where is my home?
Verse 1:
Sitting on the boat thinking
While the boat is slowly sinking
I don’t know what I did wrong, I am so confused
It’s like a person has just died and I’ve just been accused
I travel to find a home for me to settle in
But as I look my chances are getting really thin
From there to here
From here to there
Everything is spinning, it’s a nightmare
I wear the same clothes for three days straight
I eat the same food with only one plastic plate
But this is how I survive
I am grateful that I am alive
I have set a goal and I hope that I will arrive
Looking for a home is really hard
It’s not as easy as swiping a credit card
looking for a home it’s really strange
But I guess this is what it feels like to go
Go through change
Chorus:
People killing,
people dying,
calling for help but you don’t hear me crying.
Will you help find what I am searching for
or will you turn your back and shut the door?
Can you can you can you hear me I don’t know where to go
because it’s got me got me questioning where is my home?
My home, my home,
where is my home, my home, my home?
Verse 2:
It’s just not the same,
everything has changed,
I feel ashamed,
this world is insane.
If your country has peace and is strong,
why did you make me feel like I didn’t belong?
Why can’t we all just get along?
Rejection is something I find really hard to forget
and once you’ve gone through it burns hard like a cigarette
I travelled across half of the world just to get here,
It was a dream to find a home then it disappeared.
This world that I am living in,
things are getting really thin,
let me ask you a question’ Have you been where I have been?’
No food, no water,
It burns as the sun gets hotter.
Everything is unclear and is fully surrounded by fear.
It meant everything to me but you took it away,
now I am lost, now I feel a stray,
where’s the love y’all?
Where’s the truth y’all,
Where’s my home y’all?
Jannet Tapumanaia
This artwork shows refugees leaving their home in Vietnam to seek refuge in a safer place,, Australia which they hope to call home. The techniques that I used in my artwork to conveyaspects of the journey were colour, salience, vectors, and the ‘new’. I used colour to represent the feelings that the refugees were experiencing on their voyage over to Australia. On the left-hand side, the colours are dark showing the emotions of fear, sadness and pain that the war and the Communists had caused. These are juxtaposed on the right-hand side where the colours are much lighter, showing the emotions of happiness, freedom and hope as they get closer to Australia and to freedom. The salience in my artwork is the boat as it is where your eyes are first drawn; it appears larger than the rest and it is in the centre of the page. Why? Vectors are demonstrated on my artwork through the rays of sunlight which draw your eyes to Australia which was within their grasp. The last technique I used in my piece was the ‘new’ as on the left-hand side of my page showed the misery of the past in Vietnam and on the right-hand-side it showed the new and the good that was to come in Australia.
Lilly Beltrame
Rose Turunen
Year 8 E English