AY Honors/Refugee Assistance/Answer Key
1. Read Exodus 16:1-17:6. Discuss with your Pathfinder Club, unit or class the challenges that the children of Israel faced after they left their homes in Egypt.
2. Explain what the word refugee means and the circumstances that force people to leave their homes.
3. List the immediate needs that a refugee has when they arrive in your country. Describe the feelings that the refugee may have about a new language, culture and environment.
Needs: shelter will be the first, then water, clothing, food, and possibly medical attention.
It can be overwhelming to come to a place where language and culture vary so much from your own. During an already stressful period of having to abandon all that you know, entering a strange land may cause some individuals under such stress to need a great deal of social assistance to gain control over their emotions.
Environmental changes can be anything from a strange place to sleep to a geographically dynamic change. As above, stress can be emotionally overwhelming and those socio-cultural differences must be attended to. Among these can be the change of "home environment," having lost your home and now having to dwell in some form of shelter or housing not known to you before. Geographic changes can be a harsh physical barrier: those from areas normally wet have trouble adjusting to dry seasons. Consistently different temperatures can cause illness as well. For such matters medical professionals are needed to help gain control over physical illnesses that arise.
4. Find out about the organizations in your community that assist refugees and immigrants.
5. Listen to or watch a presentation about an immigrant including information contrasting the culture in their new community and their former community. Take notes.
6. Write a one page report telling what you have discovered in completing the requirements for this honor. Give recommendations of ways refugees could be assisted.
A one page report should not be hard after studying Refuge Assistance for this honor.
