Humanising the refugee crisis: how tutoring a Syrian refugee has shifted my worldview

Lara Andrews shares her experience of tutoring, and the shift in her view on the refugee crisis.

Photography by Marc Veraart on Flickr

When I signed up to the non-profit organisation “Opportutoring” at UCL, which provides English lessons for refugees via online platforms, I had no idea how much I would learn from the experience. I was paired with a Syrian refugee living in Turkey and within a few weeks, I realised just how oblivious I had been to the real-life implications of the Refugee Crisis for individuals. The Crisis had become an impersonal blur of statistics, without a human face.

In the process of tutoring, the impersonal blur of statistics was almost immediately replaced by the concrete realities of getting to know my tutee. Every lesson, we got to share the little things that make us who we are. We learned about each other’s life experiences and perspectives: favourite films and books, mutual dislike for grammar exercises, and just how political we both are. We quickly discovered how much united us and developed a respect and understanding for our differences. Most importantly, the lessons started to break down the dehumanising narrative of passive victimhood I hadn’t realised I had internalised in my understanding of “refugees.” By tutoring, I gradually learned how contemporary representations of refugees entrap refugees in narratives of victimhood. These narratives consistently fail to show how much agency, resilience, and emotional strength refugees have to employ almost every day to combat the systematic erosion of their rights and create the best possible lives for themselves.

About four months into our lessons, this systematic erosion became unavoidable when a sudden decision to change the status of Syrian refugees living in Turkey came into effect. If Syrian refugees were caught outside the city they registered in when they initially arrived, they could be sent back to Syria. My tutee had been living in Turkey for some time and had been building a life for himself; however, his life could be uprooted, without justification, explanation, or consideration for the real-life ramifications.

In the following days and weeks, I was shocked that the change had evoked such little outrage or even basic news coverage. It became apparent that the Western world has become so desensitised to the erosion of refugee rights that the real-life consequences of such legislation are largely overlooked. The lack of coverage laid bare the mechanisms by which we normalise the unequal conditions of our existence. Engaging with my tutee’s fight to live an ordinary life while his rights are systematically eroded has fundamentally shifted my worldview. 

That week, my tutee wrote a paragraph about the experience of living as a refugee and I wanted, in this article, to provide a platform for his story:

Do you think there is a best place to live? Which kind of places do you think are the best to settle down in?

Many people, when they are looking for the best place to live in, whether when retiring, going to school or looking for a fresh start, think about many factors which can impact their choice.

Some of these factors are the size of the city, the climate, the culture and the outdoor life. Of course, these factors are important when making the decision, but as always there is an exception.

The exception is people who have no other choice but to leave their home. People who are looking to stay alive. People who are looking for protection against death for themselves and their children, and from the crazy decisions of people who decided the war against other countries.

Syrian refugees don’t care where they go after leaving their homes: escaping this dirty, crazy war, which has stolen their safety.

Syrian refugees don’t care about the size of the city or town, the economy of that new place or even the climate…etc. They only care about safety. But what is happening is they discover that there is no place that provides what they need!

At the beginning of the crisis, many countries demonstrated their willingness to host refugees, encouraging Syrian refugees to think about leaving their homes and businesses to experience different ways of life in the hope of finding a new safe life. But when they moved, they discovered it was fake, most of the governments and people especially the nationalists stood against refugees and raised their voices to restrict the movement of refugees.

All people are equal and should have the same rights. They should have the right to move and to live in places where they think could provide them with a better life. Being a refugee is not a crime, the crime is what refugees’ face. The crime is this world which is losing its humanity.

Since refugees didn’t choose this crisis, everyone has to fight to protect them until they are able to go back to their land and live safely again.

Through the process of tutoring, I have started to scratch the surface of understanding the realities of the refugee crisis for individuals: tackle my complicity in the dehumanising narratives around refugees and find ways to use my privilege to provide practical support for my tutee. Almost every lesson, my tutee and I stumble upon such stark inequality between our lives that it is glaringly unavoidable. In the process of bringing our lives together an hour a week on a micro-level, these inequalities become so clear that they are no longer possible to ignore.

The Refugee Crisis can often feel insurmountable; most of us feel powerless to facilitate change. But when we take the time to support each other, we break down the narrative that our individual actions will not make a difference. Tutoring has shown me that in small acts of using privilege to support refugees, we have the power to combat powerful discourses of Othering that normalise the devaluation of refugee lives. We have the ability to create sustained emotional connections that drive us to act with care and compassion for one another. We have the privilege to fulfil roles that can empower refugees, with practical skills like language learning, to navigate the complexities of rebuilding their lives in unfamiliar countries, cultures, and environments.

Every time we ignore the plight of the people asking for a chance to carry their lives with dignity, we take a step away from the humanity that should define us. My tutee fights for himself every day. It's time we all started fighting for the people who need us most; it’s time we all started fighting for people like him.