Progress Report #4

Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons

Zoe Lewis, Sandhya Sridhar, Cloe Pippin, Austin Rose

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.

Progress Report #2

Our group has really been working hard in the last week. We met tonight to see progress on each of our individual parts. Austin did an awesome job with the video! He obviously put some time into it, and I think it'll be a great opener for our presentation. Cloe finished the picture power-point and compiled some great sources for us. Sandhya has an interview set up with Dr. Rahman for later in the week. I've started on the flyer portion of our presentation as well. Things are really coming together! We've had a minor set back with a few of our members dropping the class, but we know we'll be able to finish on time. We're pretty far ahead of the game, and we're excited with what we have done so far.

Works Cited

"Al-Nakba Refugees Picture Gallery." Hanini. Mike Odetalla, n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2012. <http://www.hanini.org/Al-Nakbagallery.html>.

"In Pictures: Palestinian Refugee Pictures." BBC News. BBC, n.d. Web. 19 Sept. 2012. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/middle_east_palestinian_refugee_children/

html/1.stm>.

"In Pictures: Syria Before the Syrian Civil War." Demotix. Demotix, 25 July 2010. Web. 20 Sept.

2012. <http://www.demotix.com/news/1354869/pictures-syria-syrian-civil-war#media-1354808>.

"Palestinian Refugees from Iraq Resettle in Chile." The Electronic Intifada. Electronic Intifada, 8 Apr.

2008. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://electronicintifada.net/content/palestine-refugees-iraq-resettled-chile/7457>.

"Refugees of Palestine - In Pictures." Occupied Palestine. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2012. <http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2010/10/31/palestinians-in-refugee-camps/>.

Progress Report #3

Sandhya's contribution --

 At the beginning of our project, I was the primary notetaker of our ideas. I have coordinated with a professor who has a wide range of expertise about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict such that we may have a video interview of his opinions on the current political status and how it affects refugees in the area. I also communicated with Hope Karekezi about visiting our class to talk about her experiences, but she will be unavailable throughout October, so I provided an alternate solution to another group member. I've researched current statistics about refugees in relevant areas, and I will also be responsible for putting together our final powerpoint. My main role in group meetings was that of facilitation and identifying important issues, but all of us together contributed to brainstorming.

Zoe’s—

I'm really happy about the progress our group has made so far. It seems like we're all leaders by nature, which means that we haven't really had to have a "leader" for the group. We worked hard over the last week and a half, after realizing two of our members had dropped the class. When a few of us met last week, I led a discussion to finalize all parts that we wanted in our final presentation. We discussed how long we thought each segment would take, and now have a better idea of what information we still need. My individual contribution is the flyers we'll pass out at the end of our presentation. At this point, it's still a work in progress. We decided that we wanted to hear what Dr. Rahman has to say in the interview, before we decide on a definite 'Call to Action' from the class. This will be presented on the flyers. In our group so far, I've tried to just keep communication flowing. Sometimes things come up, and people can't make it to meetings. I try to keep people updated on what they miss, so we're all on the same page!

Cloe’s—

Throughout the course of working on the project, my main role has been to research the lives of current Palestinian refugees. I was assigned with the task of compiling a collection of photographs of refugees from various camps in a PowerPoint presentation to give the class a more personal and concrete view of who exactly the Palestinian refugees are and what their situation is like. Beyond that, I’ve also found several personal testimonies of refugees that will help us create skit to model the issues refugees face—ranging from poverty to prejudice. I have contacted a few people from around campus in attempts to find a refugee to come and speak about their experiences and am in the process of working with a fellow student from Yemen to learn about his experiences with the refugee camps there.

Austin’s—

I have already finished making a video for our group that involved interviewing students all around campus and editting their repsonses together. Now I am working on a powerpoint presentation to explain the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Progress Report #4

Sources:

1.) "In Pictures: Syria Before the Syrian Civil War." Demotix. Demotix, 25 July 2010. Web. 20 Sept.

2012. <http://www.demotix.com/news/1354869/pictures-syria-syrian-civil-war#media-1354808>.

2.) "Palestinian Refugees from Iraq Resettle in Chile." The Electronic Intifada. Electronic Intifada, 8 Apr.

2008. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://electronicintifada.net/content/palestine-refugees-iraq-resettled-chile/7457>.

3.) Universal Declaration of Human Rights

4.) http://eycb.coe.int/domino/04.html (Refugee transcript)

5.) Peace Building in Violent Conflict: Israeli-Palestinian Post-Oslo People-to-People Activities

Ifat Maoz

International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society , Vol. 17, No. 3 (Spring, 2004), pp. 563-574

Outline:

- Austin introduce

- Austin video

- Cloe introduce prezi

- Prezi (Cloe, Austin, Zoe, Sandhya)

- Sandhya introduce video (with current statistics)

- Rahman video

- Cloe introduce picture powerpoint and skit

- Skit (Cloe, Zoe, Austin, Sandhya)

- Zoe introduce call to action of refugee agency

- Cloe present refugee agency testimony

- Zoe transition into presenting flyers

- Sandhya transition into questions

 Findings: We researched the history of the conflict, learned what would be the most impactful actions that we can do as students, and we realized the extent of how this conflict affects a basic human rights of people, including Palestinians.

We are using self-created videos, a filmed interview, pictures, scholarly articles, and NGO websites.