Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

World Refugee Day is coming-up in two days.  Here is how it described at the official site:

“The United Nations General Assembly designated June 20 as World Refugee Day to recognize and celebrate the contribution of refugees throughout the world. Since then, World Refugee Day has become an annual commemoration marked by a variety of events in over a hundred countries.

This year’s World Refugee Day theme is “Real People, Real Needs”. Despite the efforts of many, the needs of refugees worldwide are far from being met. Behind the unmet needs are not just numbers but real people with real stories.”

I don’t have time right now to do a thorough job of compiling resources, but, especially since many of our English Language Learner students are refugees, I felt like I needed to post something about the day.

Here are a few of The Best Sites For Learning About World Refugee Day (and are accessible to English Language Learners):

ESL Holiday Lessons has a English Lesson Plan on World Refugee Day that provides audio support for the text and has an online activity.

Here are photo galleries of refugees from around the world from Refugees International.

Against All Odds is an online game created by the United Nations refugee agency.   In the game you play the role of a refugee in various scenarios.  It’s probably accessible to high Intermediate English Language Learners.

The UN has a number of good videos on refugees. Unfortunately, most are on YouTube and will be blocked by school content filters (See The Best Ways To Access Educational YouTube Videos At School)

GOOD Magazine has an infographic called Seeking Refuge: A Glance At Refugees Worldwide.

The Road To Refuge is a BBC presentation on the plight of refugees around the world. It has a substantial amount of resources on the site.  The link in this post connects directly to a slideshow accessible to English Language Learners that highlights refugees from different parts of the globe.

Médecins Sans Frontières and MediaStorm have collaborated to produce Condition: Critical, Voices from the War in Eastern Congo.  It’s a moving, informative, and disturbing audio slideshow about the on-going war in the Congo, and the suffering of refugees.

Al Jazeera, the Arabic TV network, has a feature on Hmong refugees in Thailand.

Pakistan’s refugee crisis has been in the news a lot recently. Here are some resources specifically about their plight:

Pakistan’s Invisible Refugees is a slideshow from The New York Times.

Children In Pakistan is a series of photos from the Boston Globe’s Big Picture.

Fleeing Swat Valley Fighting – Refugees in Pakistan are photos from The Denver Post.

Here’s a short PDF document from the UN telling about refugee children.

Seeking Refuge is an excellent infographic from The Wall Street Journal showing the “the top countries of origin for refugees.”

I also just received this comment from Richard Millington at the UN Refugee Agency:

Hi Larry,

That’s a fantastic list, we missed two of them ourselves. Thanks for this.

Would you also be able to mention that Microsoft are donating $1 for every person who joins http://www.causes.com/refugee. They are also matching any donation made.

Other suggestions are, as always, welcome.

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