Progress Report #1

Group: Refugees and Internationally Displaced Persons; Sandhya Sridhar, Cloe Pippin, Zoe Lewis, Austin Rose

Topic: Refugees in the Israeli-Palestinian context

Plan: Our action campaign aims to raise awareness of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with respect to its impact upon Palestinian civilians and its implications for the global community. Not only will raising awareness increase cultural sensitivity, it will also recognize the needs of those who actually live through the now over-diplomacized situation, to coin a more appropriate term.

Questions:

• What is the difference between refugees want and what their governments want?
• What resources do refugees have?
• What kind of physical and psychological hardships do refugees most commonly face?
• Why is there such a large refugee population?
• What can we as students, communities, or first-world nations do to address this international problem?
• What is the historical background for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular, and why is the situation so stagnant?

Resources: 

• Arutz Sheva: Israel National News
• Palestine News Network (PNN)
• EBSCO - peer-reviewed journals
• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee website
• Israel/Palestine documentaries
• Partisan online videos

Tasks (in order of presentation) and Responsibilities:

1. Intro video: What do people at IU Bloomington know about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

• Austin Rose will film approximately 1.5 minutes' worth of students' responses to the question, "What do you think about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?" and appropriate follow-up questions. He will then create a 2-minute introduction video that we will play at the beginning of our presentation to introduce our topic, plan, and questions to answer.

2. History/Background prezi: What caused the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and what caused such a large refugee population?

• Christopher Lang will create an approximately 8-minute prezi detailing the highlights of the conflict and the reason why a refugee population exists. 

3. Professor Presentation - current political situation: From a governmental perspective, what is the current Israeli-Palestinian situation? Where are we at with respect to peace talks, and why have they stagnated?

• Sandhya Sridhar will coordinate and introduce an IU Professor who is an expert on the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and this professor will come speak to our class for about 15 minutes about the different governments' views on the conflict. She will also speak about the most important current statistics that are relevant to this professor's discussion after the professor's talk is over.

4. Refugee Presentation - personal interview of a refugee: What is it like to be a refugee? What resources are available? What do refugees seek? What kind of psychological and physical hardships do refugees most commonly face?

• Sandhya Sridhar will interview a refugee from Africa who currently lives in Indianapolis about what it was like to be a refugee who sought asylum in multiple places. Excerpts from this recorded interview will be played after the professor finishes speaking in class. This section of our presentation will last approximately 10 minutes.

5. Volunteer experiences with Refugees - personal transcript: What is it like to work with refugees? What is the difference between what is available and what refugees seek? What situations were the easiest or most difficult to address, and what actions or words from volunteers seemed to have the most impact?

• Grace Evans will interview a person who has had personal experience volunteering with refugees via email, and she will read his responses out loud in class. This transcript reading will last approximately 2-3 minutes. 

6. From the eyes of a refugee - group skit: Our group will together address all of our questions by acting our some personal manifestations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Where do refugees go for help? What answers or help do they receive, if any? Why?

• Everyone in the group will draft and act out this skit. This skit will last approximately 10-15 minutes.

7. Action campaign flyers:  These hand-outs for the class will address the question "what can we as students, communities, or first-world nations do to address this international problem?".

• Zoe Lewis will create, print off, hand out and present these flyers to the class. The flyers will be about half a regular 8" x 11" page each, and the presentation of them will last approximately 5 minutes.

8. Picture powerpoint: What is the face of refugees and internationally displaced persons?

• Cloe Pippin will create a picture powerpoint that will capture the face of refugees caught within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not only will this uphold and destroy stereotypes of what refugees are, but the powerpoint will balance our ethos- and logos-centered approaches to this problem with a more pathos focus.