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SUMITRA'S STORY, Rukshana Smith
REFUGEE SIMULATION
INSTRUCTIONS TO TEACHER
- Divide the class into "family" groups of 3 people.
- Each student needs one large sheet of paper (e.g. A3 size) and a pen.
- The simulation takes about 45 minutes (?).
- The teacher reads out the instructions, keeps time, adjudicates on any issues that arise and has total power!
- Time control is vital. If appropriate, enforce the rule that any family group that fails to meet a deadline automatically loses half their possessions.
- No-one is allowed guns or weapons.
INSTRUCTIONS TO "FAMILIES" (read aloud at appropriate intervals by the teacher)
- Recently President Idi Amin ordered all Indians to leave Uganda within 90 days. Their houses and shops are going to be re-allocated to Ugandan Africans. Time is running out… Your father has queued at the British High Commission for 3 days trying to get passports for the family to emigrate to England. He arrives home suddenly and announces that the next plane is leaving in about one hour.
- Mr Sanghvi, your father’s friend, drives you to the airport. On the way, you are stopped at an army checkpoint. The soldiers treat the men roughly. They search your luggage and steal one of the suitcases. You have three minutes to decide which suitcase has been lost.
- At the airport check-in desk, you are told that your luggage is overweight. You have no money to pay the excess baggage charges, so everyone must leave their heaviest item behind. You also discover that all the fragile items in your cases were broken at the army checkpoint. You have three minutes to find your heaviest item and any fragile items and cross them off your list.
- After an hour, the airport authorities announce that the flight has been cancelled: it will not be possible to travel until the following day. When your luggage is returned, you find that a valuable item is missing from each case. You have three minutes to decide what the missing items are.
- You must spend the night at the airport. You need to eat and drink, but you have no money. You have to barter. Swap two items from each of you for food. You have three minutes to decide on your items. (Even if you already have some food, you will need to barter items for clean drinking water.)
- It is time to take an inventory of what belongings you have left. You have five minutes to rewrite your belongings neatly on a new sheet of paper.
- Next morning, you get a flight. On arrival at Heathrow airport, you join a long queue of Ugandan Indian refugees. You are taken to a former army camp, where you must stay until more suitable accommodation is found for you. In your case, you would like to stay with your aunt and her husband for a while. What are their names and what is their address? You have two minutes to find these details in Chapter 3 of the novel!
- A few weeks later, you move into a crowded hostel for homeless families in a fairly rundown part of London. How do you feel? You have five minutes to write down your feelings as you face life in a new country, learning a new language and becoming familiar with new customs and beliefs.
You have 15 minutes to pack one suitcase per person in your family. Label your suitcases A, B and C. You are allowed 10 items in each case. You have to count what you are wearing. Choose wisely (remember, for example, that it is Autumn in England). You are only allowed items found at home; you are forbidden to take money out of the country. Write down the name of each item and which suitcase it is going in. You have to be able to carry your cases. Remember you are part of a family. Take a last look at your house and say goodbye to Yusuf, the family servant - you will never see them again.
Source: UNITEC New Zealand (Aotearoa) http://socialstudies.unitecnology.ac.nz/resources/units/long_way/simulation.html Adapted to Ugandan context by F. Meehan © 2001