London schoolchildren come face to face with refugees in the Central African Republic in groundbreaking twinning project

Gift: students at Francis Barber Referral Unit in Wandsworth examine fabrics sent by children from Bangui
Jeremy Selwyn
Anna Davis @_annadavis19 October 2018

London schoolchildren came face to face with refugees living in the Central African Republic as part of the Standard’s Learn to Live campaign.

Students from Francis Barber Pupil Referral Unit in Wandsworth learned more about young people from Bangui, capital of the CAR, after the two schools swapped videos of themselves.

The pupils have been linked as part of a groundbreaking school twinning project, which is designed to promote understanding between children from different backgrounds.

Young people from Francis Barber kicked off the twinning by sending questions and videos to their counterparts in Africa, and this week they received a response.

Kira, 14, a pupil at Francis Barber, said: “Seeing their faces made me feel like everything we have in the UK we take for granted. It made me look at things with a different perspective. Seeing the videos and letters makes me feel a personal connection to them. Next I would like to speak to them on FaceTime.”

The London group watched as the children in Bangui performed a song for them and told them about their lives. One of them was Stephanie, whose story was featured in the Standard this week. She was just 12 when she had to flee from militia fighters, and she saw them chase a local tribal leader and shoot him dead in the street in front of her.

She found sanctuary in a church with her family and others, and slept there for months as priests and nuns negotiated with militia leaders to spare them. Now 18, Stephanie attends an education programme called VoiceMore, which is run by War Child, the partner charity of the Learn to Live campaign.

At the VoiceMore centre she gets an education, and help to address the mental scars left by what she and the other children there have been through. She and her friends are now learning more about their “twins” from Wandsworth.

The pupils from Bangui also sent the London students brightly coloured cloth from their country — and pupils here are using it in their art class to create a patchwork map of the Central African Republic.

Jay, 13, at Francis Barber, said: “It is like being pen pals. It’s good we have seen them now and they have written back. When we first wrote our questions to them it didn’t feel real. It must be hard for them to express their feelings but it is good because they are telling people what they are going through.

“I would like the children in CAR to learn our names and speak to us individually on FaceTime. We would feel even closer to them then.

“I have learned about what music they like and their food, where they live, and what type of things they do while they are there, and the language that they speak. They are human, so they are going to be like us.”

Join our campaign: how your school can help

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in