NEWS STORY

Understanding the refugee story:
A group of high-school students get a chance to question the experts

by DONNA NEBENZAHL
The Gazette
Tuesday, January 06, 2004

What does a high school student know about the plight of refugees?

It's true many Montreal students are children of immigrant parents, some of whom came to this country because of conflict in their own.

But most highschoolers don't have much experience with the difficulties faced by refugees, those people forced to leave their
homes because they feel personally threatened with injury
or death.

Unless, that is, you're one of a group of students invited to take part in a discussion before tonight's final episode of Human Cargo, a six-hour dramatic series that has been airing on CBC.

The three stories that figure in the series - an Afghan woman caught at a Canada-U.S. border crossing, an African escaping from torture who files a refugee claim, and a mother and her children in central Africa who battle child-soldier recruitment and starvation - serve to highlight the terror that refugees face and the difficulties they encounter when they attempt to escape.

Under the guidance of world history teacher John Jenkins, a group of Marymount Academy students have screened the film and prepared questions for a refugee panel assembled today at a special "Lunch and Learn" session, moderated by Nancy Wood, host of CBC's Radio Noon.

Not only will the discussion be part of a live broadcast of the show from 1 to 2 p.m. today, CBC Canada Now TV News, airing at 6:30 p.m., is to devote most of its program to the Marymount event.

The series "will be used as a peg to stimulate discussion," CBC TV news director Shelagh Kinch told Mike Cohen of the English Montreal School Board. "We need to come up with topics that are relevant to these students' lives. We hope they will bring their experience as well as their thoughts to the microphone."

The students are doing their best to be ready.

" We're working on a global citizenship awareness project," Jenkins says. " Based on the film and their insights, these students will ask pertinent questions about refugees and refugee policy."

In viewing the film, "we've seen how difficult it is for people who are trying to get immigrant status, or to escape from a country," says Jermaine Davis-Wilson, 17, whose family comes from Jamaica.

" It shows what people have to go through."

Kevin Cruz-Antunes, whose parents immigrated from Portugal, realizes that "we see the world in a certain way. Human Cargo shows us that in life, in other countries, it's difficult to achieve liberty and freedom."

The film, which is based on real events, has opened the students' eyes to the conflict in Burundi and the persecution endured by citizens of different countries.

Tim Johnstone, 16, whose grandparents come from Scotland, found the film a "real eye opener, especially the character named Moses whose life is in danger because of politics."

Jason Gossack, 16, was struck by how many innocent people only want to live ordinary lives, "then they become the enemy and have to flee."

And he's aware, he says, that persecution does not have to happen in a countrywide setting, on a large scale. "It could happen in a community."

The students have been mulling over the questions they're going to ask, the most obvious being how people cope with going through the refugee process. Then, says Jenkins, come questions like why refugees are paid less and have difficulty finding jobs.

" The movie showed things on many different levels," Tim says, "using cases of people trying to escape, or at the refugee board."

The students are quite excited about today's media venture, and just a little nervous. "It's not everyday that you're on TV," Tim says.

CREDIT: Material reprinted with the express permission of: "Montreal Gazette Group", a CanWest Partnership.

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