Making Awareness Day Posters

We've been preparing for the Awareness Day that we will hold for 1st and 2nd Years after Easter. Some of our class have been making posters.

Palestine

2 weeks ago,Fatin Al Tamimi ,who is part of the Palestinian community living in Ireland,came to speak to our class about Palestine and the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

Fatin told us that the European Jewish colonization of Palestine began about a century ago and in 1948,the state of Israel was formed. That year,750,000 Palestinian refugees were removed from former Palestinian territories. 

As of 2010,there were 7.1 million Palestinian refugees. 6.6 million of whom are living outside of the occupied Palestinian territories. Often, 3 generations of Palestinian families are refugees. An area in the occupied territories called the West Bank has some refugees camps. Fatin told us about her own family, her parents live in Jordan and she holds a Jordanian passport. However,her sister lives in the Gaza Strip with her Palestinian husband. Fatin has never met her nieces and nephews who cannot get a passport because they are Palestinian and it is extremely difficult for her sister,who also holds a Jordanian passport, to travel to and from the Gaza Strip.

We also spoke to Akef, who was born in Ireland to Palestinian parents. He spoke about what it was like for Palestinian children and teenagers growing up in the occupied Palestinian territories.

This is a video that Akef,shared with us:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js-m5DdG1kA

It shows the difficult journey that Palestinian children have to do to go to school


We all found Fatin's visit very interesting

Bosnian Survey

Our class wrote a survey which we sent to students in Bosnia. We didn't know much about Bosnia except that there was some kind of conflict there during the 90's . In the survey, we asked questions about school in Bosnia and asked what they know about Ireland.

 Mount Temple Comprehensive Schools Across Borders Questionnaire

Q1. What age were you when you started school?

We started school when we were 6 years old.

Q2. What age will you be when you finish school?

We will be 19.

Q3. What types of subjects and exams are you doing?

We are coming from different schools so it is different for us.

Q4. What facilities does your school have?

We have cabinets, space for PE, reading room, kitchen, art studio, radio.

Q5. How do you get to and from school? How long does it take?

Luka, Nemanja, Milica: we use a bus

Mladen: On the bike

Ivana and Ena: by foot

Q6. What job/s would you be interested in doing after school?

Milica: to work in Library

Luka: some interesting internship

Ena and Nemanja: volunteering

Ivana: cooking and I go to school of foreign languages

Q7. What type of music do you listen to?

Ivana: Irish, traditional music

Luka and Milica: everything

Nemanja: everything but metal music

Ena: Indy rock

Mladen: jazz, blues

 Q8. What social networking sites do you use?

Facebook, twiter, youtube, google +, tumblr

Q9. What sports do you play?

Nemanja: football

Ena: pilates, aerobic

Mladen: fencing/sword play

Q10. Do you ever hear about Ireland in the media? What impression has it given you?

We learn about it in school, it looks green and beautiful. Also we hear about in media but not too often.

Q11. What impression do you think the media put out about your country? Would you like to change this impression?

People still think here is war, that there are no roads, that we are separatist, I general people have very negative picture.

Q12. How are teenagers viewed in your country?

“Children without a clue”, “We should only go to school”

Q13. Do you feel women and men have equal rights in your country?

Situation could be better, but it is moving in that direction. 

Update on Russian/ Crimean Crisis

This is a recent news bulletin from Vice News detailing the current conflict in the Crimean Peninsula. Vice provides regular and accurate updates via their YouTube channel on a number of current political and ethnic conflicts around the world such as Venezuela.

Did You Know?

Our Logo:

This is our logo, this logo encapsulates in a simple rendering of the world, what society is for us.

CONCERN TALK : SYRIA

Recently,someone from our class organised for a speaker to come. On the 13th of March, Liam Bernard from Concern came to our school to talk to us about Syria. We all had a varying degree of knowledge about the conflict and wanted to know more.

Firstly we learned about Concern:

It is a neutral, non-political organisation 

It has operations in 25 countries , with 70% being in Sub - Saharan Africa

• They work on the humanity imperative, dealing with people as humans rather than judging them by their religious views etc.
• Concern have 190 staff in Ireland 
• 89.9% of their expenditure is on development while 10% goes on fundraising and administrative costs.
• They mainly work on health, education and emergencies

Concern's work in Syria:

Concern have been working in Syria for the past 3 years, mostly with Syrian refugees who have fled to Lebanon. 9 million people need assistance.

Concern have set up a sanitation programme in one town but have only been able to access the town twice in a month. 24 people were killed in an attack. 

Since the beginning of the conflict, some people have only received aid once because they often need to apply for access and rely on village elders in some towns. Humanitarian vehicles are very obvious making it harder for them to access towns.

Concern has been working on housing Syrian refugees in Lebanon through turning unused buildings into family homes .This provides Syrians refugees a safe, rent-free place to live. Concern have also been providing clean water and purification tablets and building sewage systems. Concern's work also benefits the locals in Lebanon.

TRÓCAIRE TALK: PALESTINE AND ISRAEL

On the 20th of March, we had a speaker from Trócaire come in to talk about the conflict between Palestine and Israel as arranged by someone in the class. Shane came in and spoke to us about living in Palestine as he had first hand experience of this and also about the conflict that has been going on for years now. Here's what he told us:

• Despite most maps only showing Israel, Palestine is in fact its own country.
• There is a long running dispute between the Palestinians and the Israelis as it is the Israelis belief that Palestine's land should belong to Israel. 
• This conflict goes all the way back to the late 1800s but is mainly caused by the UN's Partition Plan which gave 55% of Palestinian land to "a Jewish state". 
• Since 1947, Israel has slowly but surely been taking over more and more Palestinian land each year and Shane showed us a video that Trócaire made to highlight the land that has been taken forcibly.
• The conflict is ongoing and at this time, it looks like a resolution is not close to fruition.
• Due to Palestine not being recognised as a "real" country, citizens cannot obtain passports therefore cannot leave the country. 
  
  Shane then showed us a video produced by Trócaire on the topic of Stolen Land.
  

After a chat and discussion, we went over to school hall and talked about the conflict together and our views. Shane asked us to throw a ball around and to say the first thing that came to our mind when we heard the words "Palestine" and "Israel". It was upsetting to hear that the first thought that most of us had was something that related to the conflicts and we talked about how we would feel if we thought that was all our own country was associated with. 

We sat down in a circle and each picked a picture. We had to hold the picture to the group and individually, we told the group of what we thought was going on in the picture. We then found out what actually was going on in the pictures. Lastly, we worked on a timeline of the conflict. 

After the talk, we all felt like we'd learned a lot and we could see the conflict from both sides. 

Thank you to Shane and all at Trócaire for their help and information!