How to speak to friends and family about refugees
We’ve seen just how quickly misinformation can spread, and the violence it can cause. Now more than ever, having productive conversations about refugees is important.
Here’s how to bring your family and friends into the conversation.
1. Show compassion
Avoid focusing on differences, and focus on our shared values of care and compassion. People seeking safety don’t need to ‘deserve’ our compassion, and they definitely don’t need our pity. So avoid discussions around those topics.
We all deserve to live in safety - whatever that looks like for us.
2. Reframe the problem
The violence we’re seeing hasn’t come out of thin air - a result of years of scapegoating and demonisation from politicians and the media to distract from their failures.
Remind loved ones that refugees aren’t causing issues in the country - it’s greedy politicians and their friends.
3. Avoid legal vs illegal
Legal doesn’t always mean that something is moral (looking at you Rwanda Scheme). Avoid using phrases such as refugees should arrive via ‘safe and legal routes’.
The majority of survivors of torture we help are refugees, and for them there simply aren’t any ‘safe and legal routes’, so instead focus on saying
that wherever you come from, everyone deserves the right to seek safety.
Join a movement of more than 170,000 people
4. Change is possible
People power works - we know this. End on a positive note, looking to the changes we can acheive by coming together as a community.
Show that together, we can create a fair and compassionate system that supports torture survivors and refugees to rebuild their lives.
Banner image credit: SOPA Images / Getty Images
