Resources

Arjun's Journey to Safety 1

Arjun is a Tamil boy from Sri Lanka. When he was six years old, Arjun and his mother and sisters fled his home in Jaffna to escape fighting. It took the family three years to reach London and be reunited with Arjun's father who had left Sri Lanka before them. Like many refugees, Arjun's family had to pay money to agents to arrange their escape.

"We drove from Jaffna to Colombo by car and then took a plane to Singapore. We arrived in Singapore and stayed there for one week. It wasn't only us, there were plenty of people. They wanted to go to Germany and all different countries. They all lived in our hotel.

We stayed in our hotel for one week. The agents arranged all that. My Dad gave money to them. And they gave us food and stuff.

And then we arrived in Bombay. From there I think it was Africa. And we stayed for two years because we had all these problems with passports and everything. The agents were messing us around and they lied to us, so we stayed there for two years. We stayed in a big house and we had to cook. We had no money, and sometimes Dad sent money to us.

Two men died in the house in Africa. They got sick with malaria, many people got sick there. All sorts of people came to the house, Sri Lankans to go to Germany, to Britain, to France and other places. Mum was angry with the agents because we were going to come to Britain straight away from Colombo, but the agents made us stay in Africa for a long time.

There were six or seven rooms upstairs and downstairs in the house. Downstairs it was a big place and we could play there. I got to know some children because I stayed for two years and I got some friends. But I couldn't go to school.

Then I came to Holland and from Holland I came to Germany, Germany to France and it's a long story! This was all because of the agents as well. We spent a lot of money because of the agents.

I stayed in Germany for six months. We stayed with Auntie, which was nice. From Germany I went to France in my uncle's car. Then we stayed in my uncle's house in France for about a week. We left France in my uncle's car and went to Dover. I didn't have a passport of my own, so I had to dress up as a girl! I had to dress up as a girl so when they asked for a passport we showed a girl's passport and we came through. I was wearing a hat. My sisters, they were laughing at me.

My Dad was in Britain, so that's why we came to Britain you see. He was over here before us and had lived in London for about six years.

We arrived in the morning about six. It was a Sunday. My Dad, he was at home. He was different from before. He was very different and felt like a stranger to me.

It took two or three years to reach England. That is why I was late starting my education. It was hard on me at school. I was in Year Two in Jaffna and I was in Year Five in London.

I don't think about all of this any more, but if I do, it's really strange and horrible."

Arjun's Story: Activities

Read through Arjun's story.
Make a list of the places that Arjun traveled through. Some of them are towns and some of them are countries. Put a tick by the ones that are countries.
Using an atlas, find the countries, then label them on your map of the world.
Now look for the towns and label them on your map too.
Carefully join up these places in the order that Arjun visited them.
You can draw a picture by the places where something important happened.
How many countries did he visit?
How long did his journey to England take?
How did he feel when he arrived in London?

Drama: Hot seating.

Someone takes the role of Arjun, and others take it in turns to ask him any questions they want, relating to his experience. 'Arjun' tries to answer as best s/he can, thinking about how it might have felt to be in the real Arjun's situation.

1 Taken from 'Refugees: A Resource Book for Primary Schools, by Jill Rutter. (Refugee Council)