In his poem below, Mohamad Alrefaai explores losing your teen years to the outbreak of war, the many traumas that come with war and the impact on a person, their family and their life even after the war has ended.
It also highlights the themes of war, displacement, loss and grief, and the bittersweet joy of being able to return home without those you lost.
You can listen to the poem if you prefer. Or why not read and listen at the same time?
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Show description|Hide descriptionBaytna (Our Home) by Mohamad Alrefaai. I thought I can forget my pain but…Memories follow me. Before the war started I was a teenager brimming with life. Living my life between friends and family. When the war started. Suddenly everything flipped. The war exploded my life. Shattered pieces sharp to touch. Painful to hold onto. Crumbling in my hands. Day by day. Things worsened. They took our land. Took the people we loved. Three years of struggle. In a country bombed to shattered glass. Humiliation bigger than we could stand. So, we stood up. For our people. Threw away our prior lives. And became protesters, fighters,
Liberators of the earth beneath our tired feet. The last image of my brother in Syria. Clutching his keys. Raj-a-een ya baytna – “We are coming back, our house”. We left. We left. We thought we would be welcomed. With dignity and pride but…We lost our home, and we became refugees. Refugees as if we were not ourselves anymore. We left the pieces of our lives, pieces of our family in bombed-out homes. In unmarked graves. Location unknown. We dreamed of our return, “Raj-a-een ya baytna”, my brother’s voice whispers. Last year we returned in our thousands. But my brother cannot. His bedroom door, a threshold I cannot cross. His little boy, the image of the father he never got to meet.
These audio poems are a great resource to use in class.
As you work through this unit, keep in mind the various experiences, both positive and negative, that a student may have encountered and how they may provide strength or challenges for them as they rebuild their life in the UK.
Many, but not all students, will be impacted by trauma from some of their negative experiences that caused them to leave their home but also from the journey they were forced to make and even the hostility they may have faced upon arrival in the UK.
For the rest of this unit, you will explore how trauma can impact a child's brain development and how you as an educator can provide appropriate support to your students.
