Story Inspires Visit with Refugees
A free-verse novel about a young refugee from Sudan haunted by the murder of his father and brother and guilty over the mother he left behind was the inspiration for an afternoon getting to know refugees who attend the Language Learning Center at Emily Griffith Opportunity School.
Each fifth grader had the chance to talk one on one with people from across the globe: Bhutan, Nepal, Ukraine, Thailand, Somalia, Myanmar, Darfur, Iraq, Congo, Eritrea, Columbia, Liberia and Afghanistan. Often the conversations centered on life in their countries before they left. One woman told the students about walking from Darfur to Ethiopia to Egypt before flying to the U.S.
The fifth grade connection with the Emily Griffith Opportunity School began two years ago when students collected books and visited the center and were invited to a culture day that the center organized just for the SMA students. Prior to visiting the school, the Lower School students collected over 70 bags of school supplies for the Language Learning Center.
(The book mentioned above is Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate.)
