[hr-education] Young Australians get streetwize about refugees

CANBERRA, Australia (UNHCR) -- "They shouldn't be here in the first place.
None of this would have happened if they didn't come to Australia." It was
comments like this from an Australian student that prompted the creators
of "The Other Side" at Streetwize Communications to create an educational
comic strip to inform young people about refugee and asylum-seeker issues.

Streetwize Communications is a non-profit group specializing in
communicating social issues to young people and other hard-to-reach
groups.  For more than 19 years, Streetwize has produced entertaining,
relevant and accessible publications on issues such as the law, health,
drugs, alcohol and violence. But the recent comic on refugees, "The Other
Side", has become their fastest-moving publication ever. It has also been
used as a catalyst for an anti-racism workshop developed by eight rural
schools from the Queanbeyan School Education Area in New South Wales.

Streetwize originally set out to write an easy-to-understand information
booklet for refugees and asylum seekers arriving in Australia. But in the
wake of the Tampa episode in which hundreds of shipwrecked asylum seekers
were rescued by a Norwegian freighter in the Indian Ocean in 2001
researchers found that there was a greater need to dispel the common
myths young people held about refugees and asylum seekers.

Liz Skelton, General Manager of Streetwize, noted, "Myths believed by
young people included that being a refugee is illegal, refugees are
dangerous, and that the number of refugees accepted in Australia far
exceeded the actual figure."

Streetwize set out to tackle these misconceptions in a non-judgmental and
entertaining way. It consulted with key community and advocacy groups in
the field and spoke to over 200 young people from a range of backgrounds,
including young refugees.

Researchers found that while young Australians responded in both a
sympathetic and hostile manner to issues raised in focus groups, the major
problem encountered was that the participants had little or no factual
knowledge to support their opinions.

Opinions ranged from "they're coming here to overpopulate our country," to
"everyone in Australia is from somewhere else, unless they're Aboriginal.
We came on boats too."

"One of the most widely-held myths was that Australia is inundated with
asylum seekers," said Skelton. Only two out of 50 people interviewed
guessed anywhere near the correct number of asylum-seeker arrivals in
Australia, which was 5,870 for the 12-month period from 1999-2000.
Overwhelmingly, people believed the number to be much larger, with guesses
of up to "about 10 million," Skelton said.

Research also showed that while young people got most of their information
from the media, they perceived much of the coverage as biased. "It's not
fair coverage. They only show you one side," and "they make Muslims look
less than animals" were just some of the comments in the focus groups.
Others said they were influenced by what their parents thought.

Some of the refugees who participated allowed the comic's creators to use
aspects of their own stories, making the comic a realistic depiction of
the problems young refugees face when they encounter a miseducated public
in their new homeland.

The comic follows the story of Yasmeen, a young refugee from Iraq, trying
to fit in with her new Australian friends. Yasmeen tells of her family's
persecution, escape, survival, detention and eventual release in Australia
in order to counter claims made by her classmates that she could be a
terrorist.

The comic helps to dispel myths about refugee and asylum-seeker status by
also profiling immigrants from the former Yugoslavia and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo with both offshore and onshore refugee visas and by
providing illustrated facts and statistics on refugee and asylum seekers
worldwide.

"The Other Side" has been very well received, with over 73 percent of
respondents to the feedback form rating the resource as an excellent tool
for communicating issues about refugees and asylum seekers. As one
respondent to the evaluation survey said, "Your publications are usually
high quality but this touches the core. I'm up here in the redneck
heartland and this story needs telling."

Streetwize's approach to resource development, along with the comic style,
has been independently evaluated and shown to be an extremely effective
way of reaching diverse groups, "particularly those who are often excluded
by traditional media and communication channels or have low literacy
skills,"  Skelton said.

The comic has also inspired an anti-racism workshop developed by eight
rural schools in New South Wales during 2004. Students were encouraged to
respond to issues raised in "The Other Side" by formulating their own
scripts and scenes and enacting similar scenarios.

Monaro High School teacher Mark Friend, one of the teachers involved in
the programme, said it was developed "to provoke thought and discussion"
about issues in the media. His students have now performed their workshop
three times. Audiences are encouraged to interact, intervene and suggest
different ways to respond to issues raised in the play. The aim is to
encourage people to move away from the preconceived and often negative
ideas many people have about refugees.

Students are also encouraged to consider the sources of common
misconceptions and attitudes. Friend said that in his class, news media
had played a major role in shaping the opinions of students.

Leigh Cumins, a Year 11 student at Crookwell High School, agreed: "In the
workshop we felt our experience of racism stemmed from stereotypes and
taking on ideas represented in the media, more through other people's
ideas and opinions rather than through direct experience with refugees,"
she said. Reflecting on her experience at the workshop and that of her
classmates, she said, "Next time we watch a TV interview, we can perhaps
view it from both sides."

Friend said both the comic and the workshops are a fun way of provoking
more thought about refugee issues and racism more broadly. The strategy,
he said, is to "hide the pill in the danish."

For more information, visit http://www.streetwize.com.au/

By Kate Michely, Ariane Rummery
UNHCR Australia


Source: UNHCR website




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