FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 29, 2005
Refugee videos receive Insight Awards
Springfield, Ill. - Recently the Illinois Refugee Children
School Impact Grant partnership (RCSIG), an ongoing collaborative
effort by the Illinois State Board of Education, the Illinois
Department of Human Services and Chicago Public Schools
to provide academic and related supportive educational
and social services to refugee children, helped create
several videos recently in order to make possible the
integration of refugees into the classroom through bilingual
education.
Two of these refugee videos were honored with the Insight
Award. The Insight Awards are given to directors, editors
and cinematographers whose work delivers a message or
creates some kind of social or political awareness. The
two refugee videos that the Illinois State Board of Education
helped to develop were submitted by the director, Stanley
Majka, at Beach Productions Ltd. Stanley Majka, the award
winning writer and director, has been making documentary
films focusing on topics such as public education, substance
abuse and hunger throughout his career. This director
is interested in telling the untold stories of other people
who are helping make a difference.
The first video, entitled In Our Country: Educating
Newcomers in America, was designed to help integrate
refugee children and parents into Illinois Schools. In
this video, refugees share their stories and viewpoints
of first days in American schools and learning strategies
that are necessary in order to succeed in the classroom.
American students watching the video will get a new appreciation
of what it means to make a home in a new world of school
and life. Newly enrolled refugee students will be able
to see and hear what they face as their school year begins.
The second video, entitled Welcoming New Learners:
A Professional Developmental Tool, was meant to help
teach teachers, social service agencies and administrators
of programs on how to handle refugees and immigrants in
a bilingual educational atmosphere. In this video refugee
families and school staff share the rewards and obstacles
that newcomers encounter when entering the United States
school systems for the first time. They reflect on their
own experiences and the successful ways they were able
to help one another make the transition from one culture
to another.
Bilingual education makes up an important part of today’s
educational system. With one in five K-12 students being
a child of immigrants, it is important that the Illinois
State Board Of Education do everything possible to help
these K-12 refugee students adapt to their schools and
communities. These refugees, who are individuals who have
fled their homelands and cannot return, based on well-founded
fear of persecution due to religious, political or other
social affiliation, have come to America without knowledge
of English or understanding of American culture.
In order to make bilingual education more effective,
school personnel and refugees must understand one another
and that is why these two award winning refugee videos
prove to be so helpful.
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