This is a guest post from Haverstock School.

Here are a selection of things that students at Haverstock School got up to during Refugee Week:

To celebrate Refugee Week, Haverstock School Citizenship Action Club organised a lunchtime stall, inviting students to share their own migration stories and sign a petition in support of Amnesty International’s campaign to urge the UK Government to allow refugees from Syria to travel safely to be reunited with their families in the UK.

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Ready to collect petition signatures! The petitions have now been given to local MP Keir Starmer to pass on to the government.

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‘We all came here from somewhere’ display of our own stories of migration.

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Year 8 and 9 students have been learning about why people migrate in their Citizenship lessons and created these messages of welcome and campaign posters/letters about specific individual cases.

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The above picture is about this case:

Sunita Davi and Surjit Singh are a young married couple threatened with deportation to Afghanistan where they fear for their lives at the hands of Sunita’s family. They also fear persecution for their religions – Sikh and Hindu – in Afghanistan. They fell in love as teenagers and had parental support but when Sunita’s father died her older brother assumed responsibility in the family and arranged a marriage to an influential older man.

Sunita and Surjit married secretly and fled to Moscow where Surjit had a brother and where he had himself lived and worked. They were however followed by Sunita’s family and attacked on a Moscow subway. They were in hospital for a few days and then with the help of Surjit’s brother fled to UK where they were detained and imprisoned 3 months as illegal immigrants. They were finally allowed to make an asylum claim and were sent to Sheffield where they have begun to make a new life. Their first child was born in June 2011.

The Sheffield Campaign to Defend Asylum Seekers urges humanitarian protection for this couple and their baby.  Their lives are in danger not only through social customs of family honour but also because their religious affiliations are currently unsafe in Afghanistan. Source: http://www.sheffieldcdas.org.uk/campaigns/current/keep-surjit-and-his-family-safe/