When Current Events Meet Our Curriculum

Back in June when I was planning our seventh grade curriculum for our oldest learner, I created a reading list to be used over the next 12 months.  One of the books on the list is Inside Out and Back Again, the story of a young Vietnamese refugee escaping the effects of the Vietnam War.  We began reading this free verse poetry novel in July and could not have predicted how much of the plot we would see mirrored in the situation in Afghanistan.  It opened a door to many discussions with our child and she was stunned by the recent images from abroad.  She looked at me and said, "What are we gonna do about it?"

That question sat with me for a short while until I decided to Google Afghan refugees in our city.  Sure enough, I found out that a family of eight was slated to arrive any day.  I contacted the local resettlement agency and asked how we could help. In the end, we decided to provide six baskets of mixed goods, one for each child.  Each basket included a complete bed in a bag, a variety of art supplies, some toys and books, toiletries and towels.  Our nearby cousins contributed a few of these things and our kids created welcome notes.  As I was choosing the items, I remembered how our children had walked out of their respective orphanages with nearly nothing tangible that had constituted their life to that point.  A rattle, a pair of underwear, a jacket with a broken zipper.  So I felt that giving each newly arrived child refugee something they could call their own might provide a tiny comfort in the overwhelming effort to start life in a new country.

After multiple email exchanges with the resettlement agency, they offered a tour of their facility - a field trip opportunity for our home schoolers - and we gladly accepted.  On our tour we met many different employees, several of whom had arrived here as refugees themselves, and between our family and the staff we were an impressively global group born in about a dozen different countries.  We learned that a total of 21 Afghan refugees, three families, were expected in our city for the time being.

If you'd like to help those resettling in your neck of the woods, start here.