The Strengths Of RESPECT International

by Souraya Ahamada

Since its inception in 2002, RESPECT International has accomplished numerous great achievements. Through the years, RESPECT has gathered a team of volunteers coordinators, editors, webmasters, teaching professionals, e-Zine writers, translators, all working together to increase awareness on refugee issues, build bridges between refugee and non-refugee communities, and encourage participating students to organise awareness raising events for their peers and fundraising events for their partner refugee schools.

Although RESPECT has met its goals, it still has to improve on a few aspects of its general activities. To evaluate the situation and work towards improvement, I was asked to collect the opinion of a RESPECT volunteer, former community leader and non-refugee teacher on RESPECT's strengths as an organisation. Strengths

Global Letter Exchange: A Teacher's Experience

by Souraya Ahamada

Virginie Breton is a second grade teacher in Saint Vincent du Lorouër, a town located in Western France. As part of RESPECT's Letter Exchange Program, her students have been exchanging letters with Burundi school students since last September.

To take full advantage of this program and make it more exciting, Virginie sometimes encloses fun, useful or simply unusual gifts in the packages she sends. Recently, she also discussed children's rights with her students so they can better understand and relate to the situation their Burundian pen pals face.

Virginie wrote to share her experience with her class and RESPECT's program. We wanted to publish her e-mail as a way to encourage more schools, classes and teachers to participate in this program and play a part in the education of refugee children. Teacher's Experience