Face to Face

On Tuesday, Year 9 and 10 students participated in the "Face to Face" program with SCARF Illawarra (Strategic Community Assistance to Refugee Families). The day started with the students participating in the World Food Game with Mrs West and Mrs Arthur.The World Food Game is a group problem solving game that aims to highlight the complexity of international trade and relations. The students enthusiastically experienced virtual hunger, corruption and breakdown of international relationships. The students then met with the SCARF team and listened to the experiences of Nicholoas and Wafa, who have resettled in the Wollongong district after seeking asylum from Congo and Syria. Both speakers talked about the lives they had lived prior to the conflicts that tore their countries apart as well as the death and destruction they experience on their journey to Australia. After listening to their stories the students had the opportunity to ask Nicholas and Wafa about their experience of arriving in Australia and how it felt to be dispossessed and given the label of a refugee. The day ended with a debrief, students were encouraged to make insightful connections between what they had seen and heard and what they had been learning in a cross KLA capacity. Students had the opportunity to reflect on their preconceptions about refuges prior to listening to Nicholas and Wafa’s stories, reflections like the following were common:

"Before today I wasn't sure about refugees, I felt like as Christians that it is part of our job to show love to everyone, but I felt detached to their issues, like they were different from us. But hearing from Wafa and Nicolas and spending time with them made me realise they are just as human as us."