Talking to children about Afghanistan: Words of humanity as the refugee crisis worsens

Published on: 18 August 2021 Author: Onjali Q. Raúf

Our Writer in Residence Onjali Q. Raúf has a lot of experience working to help refugees - and here, she shares how we can all help to make a difference as the situation in Afghanistan worsens.

Illustration: Sir Quentin Blake

You can't speak of it.

It is the unspeakable.

You can't say it.

It is the unsayable.

You can't say what you know.

It is the unknowable.
- Michael Rosen

Over the last few days, the world and all its news channels have fully awoken to just how swiftly a hostile, deeply hate-filled (and patient) force can re-invade a country and re-imprison its own peoples. Women and children included.

And whilst we - and our children - bear witness to people being shot at whilst clinging to moving planes in the hopes of escaping life under the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan, frontline refugee aid response teams have braced themselves for what is set to happen.

Not only are they aiding more souls trying to flee and reach the safety of refugee camps, but they are also trying to keep calm the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children from Afghanistan already living in camps across Europe and who are more fraught and anxious than ever about the fate of loved ones back home. (A note to remember: the wars, bombings and invasions in Afghanistan did not magically end 20 years ago. They have been ongoing these last two decades. The difference now is that it's back on our TV screens).

And they have to do all this whilst knowing full well that far too little help, sympathy or resources will be available from the majority of our world leaders.

Those facts are enough to make the best of us despair. Especially when we may feel numbed by the sense of deja vu engulfing us, or feel helpless in the face of so much desperation.

The only way we can counter such feelings is to act. And we can all do that. Every single one of us CAN act.

We can act by signing petitions calling on the UK government to change its closed-border refugee policies like the one HERE, and to help save women and girls now most at risk like the one HERE.

We can act by ramping up our support for organisations right here in the UK which work to welcome and look after refugees, such as the Kent Refugee Action Network or the Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants.

We can join lobbying groups like Safe Passage, or help children understand why a giant girl puppet called Amal is walking 8,000 kilometres from Syria to the UK and go and join the events set to take place to welcome her (learn all about The Walk HERE and use the education activity packs linked to this amazing initiative HERE).

And we can also act to answer the questions our children will have about the images and words they are hearing and seeing in relation to what is happening right now, by gifting them the world of books and stories now out there to help them understand and empathise.

From Sita Brahamachari's Red Leaves and Benjamin Zephaniah's Windrush Child, to Frank Cottrell-Boyce's The Unforgotten Coat; AM Dassu's Boy, Everywhere, Catherine Bruton's No Ballet Shoes in Syria, Michael Rosen's On the Move: Poems about Migration and so, so many more, stories await - along with answers.

Because 20 years from now, it's our little ones who will be taking their positions behind the lecterns of power in this world of ours.

And how beautiful a thing it would be to have our treatment of their curiosity and desire to learn and understand lead to just the kind of generous, open-hearted, and deeply empathetic leaders our world is sorely in need of today.

In that hope, below are lists of books which may help us all do just that.