Second Graders Learn About Being a Refugee

Kim Hollandsworth, RESPECT's International Volunteer e-Zine Coordinator, recently ran a classroom session for second graders using materials from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). She was delighted by the results. The children went from not knowing anything about refugees at the start of the session, to getting a sense of what it is like to be a refugee.

On the video, "To Be A Refugee," children have to make their own soccer ball out of a surgical glove and twine just so they have a toy to play with. The kids in the classroom were in awe at how the children created the soccer ball – or indeed, even the fact that they had to make their own toy! more>>

New RESPECT University Courses Take Off

by Iona Lister

New courses supplied by RESPECT University are now under way, and we hope the range and number of subjects will increase in the near future. English for Academic Purposes is a popular course, as is Business skills. There are also some more unusual courses starting, such as Music Technology, Song-writing, Statistics, and Journalism.

For tutors planning a course, the idea of working with individuals whose skills are unknown can be daunting; for that reason, the first assignments are always exploratory and open in style. Similarly, for students embarking on a RESPECT University course, they too have many questions to ask and many expectations to fulfill.

Progress can be slow at times. Not all students have access to the internet, so assignments are distributed, and returned to the tutor, via snail-mail, the postal service. more>>