1. LEAVE TO REMAIN FILM DISCUSSION

2. Method one: large number of young people All watch the film together
GUIDANCE
How to use these notes
Method one: large number of young people
All watch the film together
Young people are divided into smaller groups and then each have two or three points to look at
Method 2
Watch the film in small groups.
Each young person has one point to lead on
Overarching Questions
Can there ever be social justice when we have arbitrary boundaries?
Are all refugees equal or are some more ‘worthy’ than others?
To what extent should the state help refugees? (Especially when there are others also living in poverty?)

3. “It's often frustrating when you're a war reporter and you're covering these places that far away. You're frustrated by making stories that people can't connect to in any way. It's hard for Americans to connect to Arabic- speaking Iraqis in refugee camps or Pashto-speaking Afghans in the countryside, and having a character who is a vehicle through which you're allowed to make these relationships really allowed us to gain in an emotional weight that was difficult for us to do any other way to make it all human.” Rick Rowley
LEAVE TO REMAIN
DISCUSSION POINT 1

4. “Another issue is that some refugees—maybe more than we will ever know—are traumatized due to their experiences in their home country and/or during their escape. This leads to depression or abnormal behavior and makes it difficult to communicate with people. With more than a thousand people in the camp, it is impossible to identify all the cases of trauma because we have to rely on the information that refugees give us or the information we obtain through translators.” Miriam Dusterhoft
LEAVE TO REMAIN
DISCUSSION POINT 2

5. “In our hearts we know that with a different fate, we, too, could be in the ranks of the dispossessed, stripped of our identities and belonging nowhere. The refugee becomes a sinister symbol of what can quickly happen once personhood is denied and people are transformed into disposable units of contemptible impediments to the greed or power-mongering of others.” Dave Mearns
LEAVE TO REMAIN
DISCUSSION POINT 3

6. “I know a few things to be true
“I know a few things to be true. I do not know where I am going, where I have come from is disappearing, I am unwelcome and my beauty is not beauty here. My body is burning with the shame of not belonging, my body is longing… The lines, the forms, the people at the desks, the calling cards, the immigration officers, the looks on the street, the cold settling deep into my bones, the English classes at night, the distance I am from home.” Warsan Shire
LEAVE TO REMAIN
DISCUSSION POINT 4

7. “The story of humanity is essentially the story of human movement
“The story of humanity is essentially the story of human movement. In the near future , people will move even more, particularly if, as some predict, climate change sparks mass migration on an unprecedented scale. The sooner we recognize the inevitability of this movement, the sooner we can try to manage it.” Patrick Kingsley
LEAVE TO REMAIN
DISCUSSION POINT 5

8. “Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do
“Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action.”
Mother Teresa
LEAVE TO REMAIN
DISCUSSION POINT 5

9. “The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.”
Herbert Spencer
LEAVE TO REMAIN
DISCUSSION POINT 7

10. I come from an ancient place All my family were born there And I would like to go there But I really want to live. I come from a sunny, sandy place Where tourists go to darken skin And dealers like to sell guns there I just can’t tell you what’s the price. I am told I have no country now I am told I am a lie I am told that modern history books May forget my name. We can all be refugees Sometimes it only takes a day, Sometimes it only takes a handshake Or a paper that is signed. We all came from refugees Nobody simply just appeared, Nobody’s here without a struggle, And why should we live in fear Of the weather or the troubles? We all came here from somewhere. Benjamin Zephaniah – Extract from We Refugees
LEAVE TO REMAIN
DISCUSSION POINT 8

11. “Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.”
Benjamin Disraeli
LEAVE TO REMAIN
DISCUSSION POINT 9

12. “The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom”
John Locke
LEAVE TO REMAIN
DISCUSSION POINT 10

13. “People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power
“People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.” Edmund Burke
LEAVE TO REMAIN
DISCUSSION POINT 11

14. “We must never forget ... that migrants, rather than simply being a statistic, are first of all persons who have faces, names and individual stories. Europe is the homeland of human rights, and whoever sets foot on European soil ought to sense this, and thus become more aware of the duty to respect and defend those rights. You [can] show that in these lands…the heart of humanity continues to beat, a humanity that before all else recognizes others as brothers and sisters.” Pope Francis
LEAVE TO REMAIN
DISCUSSION POINT 11