Some ideas for working with Young People
on the issue of Family Reunification

Many young people have demonstrated a great interest in advocating for the rights of refugees and immigrants. Please tell youth whom you know about this endeavour and encourage them to get involved.

In a recent showcase event on Development Education Nasc met with many young people from secondary schools in Cork City and County. We found that this age group was appalled by the detail of what they heard about Irish laws and procedures in relation to Family Reunification.

For this reason we include here some ideas for youth leaders and teachers on how young people they work with might engage with Nasc’s Campaign. We would like to state that we feel it is important that this is not something which is imposed on young people against their will, but that they might be exposed to the problem and decide for themselves if this is a Campaign they wish to engage with.

Some ideas are as follows:

  • Make a link with a particular family, either in your local area or through Nasc or other organisations working in support of Refugees/Immigrants. Encourage young people to learn about the country of origin of this family. Encourage them to write to the family and in particular encourage them to write to the children in the family. This might be done through letter writing or email depending on the facilities available in a particular country or region.
  • With older teenagers encourage them to find out more about the issue of family reunification. Encourage them to take this as a project under relevant curriculum areas. Encourage them to investigate Irish laws and procedures and ask them to try to understand how they would feel if they were in the same situation.
  • Encourage young people to set up a local campaign and talk to their local media or politicians or to put down a parliamentary question. Encourage them to bring local allies on board such as immigrant support groups or children’s rights groups.
  • Encourage projects, which include empathy. Invite people their own age to the classroom if possible or family members. Encourage role-play or essays whereby they must imagine themselves in this situation.
  • With younger young people encourage use of reading personal stories (see Nasc’s website), role-play, drawing, looking at visual images and trying to encourage empathy with families involved. Contact with the families concerned will help young people to empathise even further.
  • Encourage reflection on the issue on Mother’s Day/Father’s Day or the International Family Day.
  • Help young people to create a pamphlet about people in their local area who have been separated from their families.
  • In all of this work be sensitive to the feelings of both refugee/immigrant families and to young people in your group who themselves may be affected by family separation/death, etc.

Key materials