Return to scene 12 to make your choice.
¶ A passport proves your identity and citizenship of your home country; a visa states your permission to enter the new country and for how long you may stay.
FACT FILE:
REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS
An asylum seeker is someone who crosses an international border and claims to be in danger. These claims are heard by the UNHCR or the government of the host country, and if the person is found to be in need of protection, they are defined as a ‘refugee’**.
Refugees are not always poor, and they can come from any country in the world. In their host countries, they may live in camps or in cities. What they have in common is that they didn’t want to leave their home, but felt they had to so they could survive.
There are lots of situations that can push someone into being a refugee, but the most common one is war. That means the countries who host the greatest number of refugees are the neighbours of countries at war. For example, in 2015, 2.5 millionrefugees (that’s about one in every ten people in Australia) fled a war in Syria to Turkey next door, and Ethiopia received 736,100 refugees, many from its neighbour Somalia.
Refugees may have a lot to offer their host country: they may have useful skills or qualifications; they may be hard-working and determined. But refugees may also have pressing health needs, as well as basic human needs such as shelter, food and water, and host countries may struggle to meet these needs if many refugees arrive at once.
How can the countries of the world best cooperate to support and appreciate refugees?
Go to scene 17 to continue with the story.
** If it is decided that an asylum seeker is not in need of protection, they may be sent back to their own country, but this is a very complicated legal process.
FACT FILE:
BOTTLE-LIGHTS AND OTHER GREAT INVENTIONS
Sometimes the best inventions are the simplest. In a place like a refugee camp, which struggles to meet people’s basic needs, a simple invention can have life-changing consequences. Often it’s the people who live in these difficult circumstances themselves who come up with the best ideas.
The bottle-light from the story is a real invention. It was invented by Alfredo Moser, a Brazilian mechanic. During his city’s frequent electricity blackouts, he came up with a simple solution: to use a bottle of water, fitted into a hole in the roof, to refract the sun’s light and illuminate a room.
A charity picked up on his idea and trained people to make and install them, and now Moser’s bottle-lights light up more than 350,000 homes without electricty in over fifteen countries around the world!
It’s not only Moser who is finding ways to bring great simple ideas to people who need them most. Ann Makosinski, a fifteen-year-old Canadian schoolgirl, invented the first ever torch that doesn’t need batteries or solar panels and instead runs on just the heat of your body. When the torch touches your skin, it lights up.
There are lots more simple and amazing inventions out there, which you can research yourself. Maybe someday you will invent one too!
People all over the world need shelter, sanitation, clean water, education, and many more necessities that are basic human rights. Most inventors spend their time making things like the latest-model phones or heated leather car seats, because expensive, fancy inventions make people rich. But simple, effective inventions can save lives.
Alfredo Moser never became rich from the bottle-light, but he has a huge sense of pride about it. ‘I’d never have imagined [it would help so many],’ he said in an interview. ‘It gives you goose-bumps to think about††’.
Return to scene 17 to continue with the story.
†† Alfredo Moser in ‘Bottle Light Inventor Proud to Be Poor’, by Gibby Zobel, BBC World Service, Uberaba, Brazil, BBC News Magazine, 13 August 2013. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23536914
FACT FILE:
PEOPLE SMUGGLERS
A ‘people smuggler’ is someone who helps other people to cross a border in secret without the required documents. People smugglers may or may not be paid for the work they do.
People smugglers might be trying to help you, or they might be criminals who just want to make money from desperate people seeking safety. They might be reliable and get you safely across the border, or they might take your money and run, leaving you to your fate. They might even sell you as a slave, or hold you hostage until your relatives give them more money. Because of these risks, it is very, very scary to put your life in a people smuggler’s hands.
Desperate people use people smugglers. Often a whole family will sell everything they own just to get one member to safety. They risk a dangerous journey because their home is even more dangerous, and a safe option to escape is not available to them.‡‡
Millions of people around the world have either been sent to their deaths or had their lives saved by a people smuggler. If your grandparents escaped Europe during World War II, or if your parents came to Australia at the end of the Vietnam War, maybe you are only reading these words right now thanks to them trusting their lives to a people smuggler.
If we could do these three things, then refugees would not need to use people smugglers so much:
1. Make refugees’ home countries peaceful.
2. Give the neighbouring countries extra support so refugees can build new lives there.
3. Make visas and transport to Western countries much more readily available.
It will take a lot of time, goodwill and dedication to achieve
