1.2 B: Storytelling statelessness Duration: 60+ minutes Instructions: Level of complexity: 2 In this activity, participants will be asked to produce their own piece of creative work. Before that, as a group, read the short story “Melancholy” written by one of the two authors of Neha’s book, Amal de Chickera. Discuss the participants’ thoughts on the story. Some guiding questions that could be used include: Knowledge/Subjects: Art, Civics, Literature, Writing 1. What happened when the boy’s grandfather missed his registration? 2. Why was the boy so sad that he missed the library registration? 3. Why do you think the registration period for the grandfather was so short? What could be done to fix this problem? 4. What is the story trying to tell us? What would you think is the message of the author? 5. Is the feeling of belonging important? How can nationality affect our feeling of belonging? What happens when someone does not have a nationality? Short stories, poetry, plays, and performances are all great ways to discuss issues such as exclusion and statelessness, and how it can influence an individual’s sense of belonging and their experience of the world around them. Using creativity allows you to get a message across in a unique and oftentimes more memorable way than just explaining about something. The short story you just read is one example of this. The book, The Girl Who Lost Her Country, is a much longer piece of prose that tries to help convey information and share some key messages on the issue of statelessness. Other poetry examples on the issue of statelessness can be found online at http://www.kids.worldsstateless.org/create/poetry. Now it is time for participants to create their own short story, poem, play, drawing or cartoon. The only guideline is that it relates to borders, belonging or exclusion in some way. Participants can work in groups or individually on the activity. Create a scrapbook containing everyone’s creation and, if there is a printing capacity create copies for everyone. If you are in a school environment, you can also circulate it in the school. Skills: Creativity, Critical Thinking, Empathy, Reading Comprehension Values/Attitudes: Sense of identity Objectives: • For participants to express their thoughts on the exclusion stateless people face and the fairness of a system that allows for that to happen through a short story, poem or play. • For participants to understand and empathise with the life stateless people lead and the hardships they might face. Materials: It would be beneficial for all participants to have a copy of the short story, and paper/pen to write down their own work Connection to “The Girl Who Lost Her Country”: Sima and her family are Kurdish Syrians living in Germany. Sima’s dad, Sami explained to Neha: “we are Kurds, I was born in Syria like my wife and my children, and we lived there all our lives before the war broke out. However, not one of us has Syrian nationality. We are “maktoum”, this means that we are not registered in Syria. When a census was carried out in 1962 many Kurdish Syrians were not registered. My grandfather was on bad terms with his landlord at the time and when the census committee visited his landlord, he did not pass on my grandfather’s name for registration. My grandfather instantly became stateless and we have had to inherit this status and pass it down to our own children ever since.” (Neha’s book p. 35-36) Further the Activity: Every story has an author and sometimes more than one! Get to know a little bit about the second author of Neha’s book, Deirdre Brennan. You can read her interview in Appendix IV on her inspiration and experiences that guided the story, how Neha’s book came to be and her plans to write a sequel! Next, you can interview another participant on their inspiration and goals when producing their creation for this activity. Make sure you’ve read the creation of the other participant carefully and reflected on what the message of their piece is to discuss it in the interview. 20