UNHCR - Unit plan for ages 15-18 in Geography: Internally Displaced People

Thousands of people fled attacks on their villages and gathered under trees on the outskirts of Goz Beida, the main town in south eastern Chad. © UNHCR/H.Caux

Teaching About Refugees

Unit plan for ages 15-18 in Geography: Internally Displaced People

UNIT OBJECTIVES

Knowledge

To understand clearly the legal difference between a refugee and an internally displaced person
To understand that not all people who flee violent conflict are able to cross international borders and claim international protection as refugees
To understand that individual governments and the international community must ensure that internally displaced people are protected and their human rights respected

Values

To encourage in the students empathy for internally displaced people who have lost their homes and belongings and whose government will not or cannot provide them protection from conflict
To articulate the rights of internally displaced people and the corresponding responsibilities of governments and the international community to support those rights

Skills

To be able to identify the similarities and differences between refugees and internally displaced people
To practise sensitive enquiry and reasoning skills.
To think critically.

During the "Day of Documentation" in Ciudad Bolivar, UNHCR's Mobile Registration Unit helped the local internally displaced people apply for identification cards. Identity documents are key to gaining access to state humanitarian aid, such as health care, education and credit and bank loans. © UNHCR/P.Smith

LESSON 1 and 2: Who are internally displaced persons? Where are they concentrated?

CONTENT	TEACHING METHODS/LEARNING STRATEGIES
Who are internally displaced people? Where are the major concentrations of internally displaced people around the world? Why do they become displaced?	Questioning Reinforcement of students' understanding of refugees. Students are asked for their impressions of why, when persecuted or in danger, hundreds of thousands of people sometimes do not flee across borders, i.e. to think of reasons why these people do not become refugees. Map work Students examine the annotated map to see that regions afflicted with violent conflict produce internally displaced people. Discussion of the root causes of internal displacement, starting from descriptions from the maps.
RESOURCES
Background reading for teachers UNHCR, The State of the World's Refugees: Human Displacement in the New Millennium, (Oxford, OUP, 2006), Chapter 7: Internally displaced persons, pp. 153-175 The whole of Refugees magazine issue no. 141 [PDF, 1,1Mb] is devoted to the topic of internally displaced people. Students' resources The whole of "The World's Internally Displaced People" [PDF, 170Kb] Refugees, no. 141, 2005, pp. 16-17

A UNHCR-organized group encourages internally displaced people and returnees to discuss gender-based violence in Aruni, Sri Lanka. © UNHCR/R.Chalasani

LESSONS 3-4: Internal conflict and displacement around the world

CONTENT	TEACHING METHODS/LEARNING STRATEGIES
Internal conflict and displacement around the world. The great variety of circumstances under which internal displacement occurs. Differences between refugees and IDPs. Implications of the status of IDPs.	Teacher lecture based on "The biggest failure of the international community"[PDF, 952Kb], Refugees, no. 141, 2005, pp. 2-19. Review and application Questioning and discussion to encourage students to think deeply about the status of IDPs.
RESOURCES
Ray Wilkinson, "The biggest failure of the international community"[PDF, 952Kb], Refugees, no. 141, 2005, pp. 2-19. Violent conflict on both sides of the Chad/Sudan border has displaced tens of thousands of people. The Chad/Dafur Emergency home page provides links to information about this particular humanitarian crisis where refugees and IDPs are found on both sides of an international border. "Darfur: the challenge of protecting the internally displaced", UNHCR, The State of the World's Refugees: Human Displacement in the New Millennium, (Oxford, OUP, 2006), pp. 162-163

UNHCR and the internally displaced
Questions and Answers on internal displacement, published September 2006. [PDF, 1.4Mb]

Who are IDPs?
Flash presentation about who is looking after the world's estimated 25 million internally displaced persons.

Refugees Magazine
Issue N° 141:
Special edition focusing on Internally Displaced Persons: "Forgotten No Longer?" [PDF, 1Mb] (published January 2007)

UNHCR Photo Galleries:

Internally Displaced in Chad
Violence crosses the border.

Timor-Leste Emergency 5
The emergency operation reaches out.

Timor-Leste Emergency 4
UNHCR sets up camps.

Timor-Leste Emergency 3
UNHCR's air and sea relief delivery operation.

Timor-Leste Emergency 2
UNHCR airlift underway.

Timor-Leste Emergency 1
Recent violence in Timor-Leste has displaced about 100,000 people.

Colombia: Life in the Barrios
Survival is a challenge for Colombian IDPs living on the outskirts of the capital Bogota.

Colombia
Assisting the internally displaced.

Sri Lanka
IDPs and Returnees in Sri Lanka.

Ingushetia
Internally Displaced Chechens.

UNHCR Web Videos:

Chad: Concerns over new violence
More than 20 villages have been burned and looted in south-eastern Chad and tens of thousands are displaced. (3:34)
Posted 01 December 2006

Helping the internally displaced in Uganda
UNHCR has started to assist the almost 1.5 million internally displaced persons in northern Uganda. Forced to flee their homes more than a decade ago, the families are living in squalid conditions in camps. (4:05)
Posted 31 Aug 2006

UNHCR response in Timor-Leste
UNHCR plans to send another 300 tonnes of aid to tens of thousands of displaced people in Timor-Leste. (2:51)
Posted 27 Jun 2006

Colombia: Plight of the displaced
A look at how the ongoing violence has displaced indigenous people. (2:46)
Posted 30 Nov 2005