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if Grace behaves this way with other refugee children or if it is only Arash she
seems to not like;
if this only happened once or has happened a number of times;
how much Arash understood of what she said to him;
if Arash did anything to upset Grace in the first place.
Maybe you can think of other things that we know, or should know, and things that we
don’t know but need to know. Some Elephant-thinking will help us to understand some
of the background to this problem. We can mix this with a bit of Spider-thinking, as a
search on the web can show us something of the history of refugees coming to this
country.
Elephant-thinking will show us that refugees have
sought safety in this country for many decades, usually
coming from countries where fighting is happening.
Many are running from wars or from long-running
feuds. Some have to leave places where there has
been a natural disaster, such as a flood or cyclone,
that has destroyed their homeland. Others are forced
to move to another country because of poverty. Whatever the reason, refugees
generally have to leave behind everything they own, their friends and other family
members, and much of their way of life.
It could be helpful to find out where Arash’s family came from and why his family had to
leave their home. We also could find out how he and his family managed to arrive in this
country, how long they have been here, and what happened when they first arrived.
Many refugees have a very difficult journey to find a place of safety and may have to
spend a lot of time in detention centres before they are allowed into the country. All this
can have a very strong affect on their health and their state of mind.
Some Worm-thinking could help us to see the problem in different ways. We could use
our imaginations to think about Arash’s point of view and how he feels. Does he feel
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