The story of Dania and her family...

Five months ago, Dania and her family were sitting in their home in Aleppo, Syria, about 60 miles south of here, when a bomb dropped from the sky. Her grandmother, aunt, uncle and two cousins were killed instantly. Another cousin lost his legs. Dania was mangled.

Mohammad Amroosh, her father, says that after what Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's military did to them, he can't go back. When Dania is ready to leave the hospital, the family will stay in Turkey, joining nearly 700,000 other Syrians who have taken shelter in the country.

"This is our home now," he says.

Explaining the Syrian Refugee CRISIS

#FACTS 

There are 2,354,447 Syrian refugees.

The Turkish government has spent more than $2.5 billion to care for refugees. Syrian patients are now the majority in many hospitals and clinics. Schools are running two or three shifts a day to keep a generation of Syrians from going uneducated


Before the Syrian war, Kilis was a quiet outpost of about 80,000 people on the Syrian border. Now its population is at least 130,000. At Kilis State Hospital, with pretty, salmon-colored walls, surgeons have operated on Syrians at least 11,000 times this year, in five operating rooms that run nonstop. Bomb and bullet wounds account for most of the injuries.
More than 530 refugees have died in the hospital this year, and more than 1,500 Syrian babies have been born. Doctors keep photos of the grotesque wounds they have treated, including one that shows a fetus with a bullet wound to its foot. The hospital's surgeons saved Dania Amroosh's life.

Her father survived the blast that maimed her, and he immediately started digging in the rubble for his family. Neighbors and rescuers arrived. Mostly he was finding dead bodies.

The details of that night come to him now in disconnected bits: Dania at an Aleppo hospital. Her stomach flayed. His daughter's intestines.

Doctors telling him to go to Turkey immediately. Kilis State Hospital was an hour away, just over the border. Dania's best chance was there. He rode with her in an ambulance. A phone call to his wife. Dania was in surgery. He was still in his pajamas.

"I didn't expect her to live," says Amroosh, who worked as a tailor in Aleppo. "I still can't believe what happened. Sometimes I think it couldn't have happened."

For five months, he has been sleeping on the floor in the hall, or sometimes outside on the grass. His son Mahmoud, 8, sleeps where he can find space.

They have no money. The hospital gives them food. Their only possessions are a few clothes stuffed into a small plaid bag.

Dania's mother, Ghada Amroosh, has slept every night in the armchair beside her daughter's hospital bed. She doesn't mind.

"After what happened, nothing is really difficult anymore."

LINK

The Washington Post: Syrian Refugees

UNHCR LETTING THEIR VOICES BE HEARD In October, Washington Post photographer Linda Davidson and I set off for Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon to report on the Syrian refugee crisis, one of the largest forced migrations of people since World War II. Our goal was to document the size and complexity of the crisis, showing its effects on the lives of individual refugees as well as the lasting impacts on the countries hosting them. We broke the crisis down into 18 personal stories of a wide range of refugees. Linda and I interviewed and photographed widows and orphans, the wealthy, the wounded, children and the elderly, those surviving in camps, and those suffering in urban slums. To capture the full range of refugee life, we witnessed a birth and a wedding, classrooms and operating rooms, and we visited a cemetery where families mourned not just for their dead, but for the fact that they are buried in foreign soil. We saw terrible misery and inspiring stories of resilience and survival. We hope the portraits of these refugees, and the nations struggling to help them, will further an understanding of one of the most daunting human crises in recent memory. These people, and these countries, will never be the same. — Kevin Sullivan LINK UNHCR and our partners are currently addressing the concerns of 4,598,691 refugees who are directly affected by the violence in Syria. Unfortunately, the projections in 2013 indicate a continued outpouring of refugees to neighboring countries with an uncertain timetable for return. HCR and our partners are currently addressing the concerns of 4,598,691 refugees who are directly affected by the violence in Syria. Unfortunately, the projections in 2013 indicate a continued outpouring of refugees to neighboring countries with an uncertain timetable for return.  and our partners are currently addressing the concerns of 4,598,691 refugees who are directly affected by the violence in Syria.

Unfortunately, the projections in 2013 indicate a continued outpouring of refugees to neighboring countries with an uncertain timetable for return.

Unit 28: Storytelling 2nd DRAFT

Blind Victory

Cagla: Did you finish your homework before coming out? you know how mum is"

Ruth: Yeah of course I did"

Cagla: Alright, well lets start with the ball game".

*Ruth and Cagla start off with playing playground games, we can see them running around, laughing, screaming etc*.

Ruth: Pass it over here”.

Cagla: No it’s mine”.

Ruth: We’re playing a game, give it, give it”.

*Cagla tosses the ball at Ruth and they continue playing their game centre stage*.

Cagla: You're throwing it too high".

Ruth: No I'm not".

Cagla: I'm bored of this game, lets play hopskotch".

Ruth: You're doing it wrong, this is how you do it".

Cagla: No, you're doing it wrong. You don't start off with two".

Ruth: Whatever, I'm still better than you".

*After one last round they both stop the game*

Ruth: I'm feeling hungry, do you think mums prepared dinner yet?".

Cagla: I think so lets check the time".

*They both pretend to check their watch/alarm and it makes a noise, they move their heads in the same motion*.

“Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock”.

Cagla: Yeah lets go down".

*They make their way back to their home in slow motion but then speed up again as they turn back around*

Cagla: Pass me the remote, lets watch some TV".

Ruth: Here".

*They start to eat dinner in front of the television. A news report sound effect comes on in the back ground, Cagla stands to her feet while Ruth continues eating in slow motion*.

Cagla: There has yet been another one hundred people found dead from the accidental bombing that happened in Syria, it was unintentionally dispatched into the back of a factory, some people have survived the awful incident but have been left seriously injured. Resulting into some of them loosing legs, arms and even eyesight. Our thoughts go out to the victims and the families victims...."

*Cagla then sits back down and starts eating in slow motion, Ruth stands up and gives a news report*

Ruth: According to provincial Governor Talal al -Barazi, two explosion occurred with a difference of a few minutes in the residential area of Al-Zahra. It was placed in a densely populated quarter. Did this happen because the government and opposition groups gathered in Geneva in a bad to start talks aimed at a political solution to conflict? Was the bombing really an accident?".

*Ruth sits back down and they come out of their transition and start to eat and talk normally*.

Cagla: Do you think that'll happen to us?"

Ruth: What?"

Cagla: The bombings, I mean it seems unrealistic".

Ruth: No, I don't think so. It's never happened before so why should it happen now".

Cagla: Yeah.."

Ruth: We're perfectly safe".

Cagla: Wow you ate your food quick".

Ruth: You need to hurry up so we can go out and play".

Cagla: Let's just go now, I'm full".

*They walk away from each other and walk back upstage, they run around and begin to skip towards each other in slow motion as an explosion happens*

*BANG!*

*Ruth and Cagla fall to the ground after the bombing, they lay on the ground for a few moments before trying to sit up and start feeling their face*.

Ruth: I can't see"

Cagla: I can't see"

Ruth and Cagla: God help me, I can't see!"

Ruth: Mum!"

Cagla: Mum!"

Ruth: I can't feel anything"

Cagla: Why are we cursed".

Ruth: Tasnim where are you? I can't see you".

Cagla: I'm coming to help, wait".

Ruth: My eyes, I can't see".

Cagla: Miriam I'm here look, look!".

*After a few attempts, they stand on their feet unable to see with their knees slightly bent looking out towards the audience*.

*They try to walk forward but they fall to the ground, after a few moments of lying on the ground they stand to their feet*.

Cagla: What's the point of living in a country with no democracy? Where no one listens to anything you have to say, all they do is lift up a gun, point it at you and BANG you're dead. I live in Britain, a country where I can vote, I have a voice and I can choose what I want to do as long as it's not illegal. I get to go to school and have a free education, I have free travel until I'm 18, but most importantly I have rights. The government allows me to pick and choose what I don't like. If you came over to Britain you would get a feel of true democracy, it allows us to be a modern and forward country with no restrictions or threats. Direct democracy gives all people the right to participate regardless of religious beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, and physical well being.

Ruth: It's not safe here, I can't stay here I'll die. I've already lost something so vital to me, my eyesight I'm blind for the rest of my life. I can't lose my life either. Democratic prospects have vanished by the devastation of civil war and the deepening fragmentation of Syrian society. All my sources are limited and there's no way I'll even make it to the age of 18 with the way things are happening here. I don't have a chance to express how I feel without being murdered or assaulted in the easiest case. I'm fed up of not having any freedom, I can't go out to play without being attacked, how can I make my own way to school knowing it's not safe? There's no equality in this country, nobody has a voice yet all the citizens seem to be suffering and having to pay for something we never had an opinion in".

Ruth: It's time to go, we must leave".

*We see Cagla and Ruth packing their bags preparing to leave.

Cagla: It's a long journey but they must leave, they're scared for their lives. They decide to take a risk and make their journey to Britain. It's a dangerous journey but they're willing to risk is".

TASK 1: What are British values?

What are British values?

Image: UK Grunge Flag' by Nicolas Raymond

Flag

According to Ofsted, British values are:

• democracy; 
• the rule of law; 
• individual liberty; 
• mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith
.

But what are 'British values'?

According to Ofsted, 'fundamental British values' are:

• democracy
• the rule of law
• individual liberty
• mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith.

Link