Welcome to Glasgow

Handwritten postcards for refugees

Pupils have used their creativity to extend the hand of friendship to refugees coming to Scotland.

Pupils at Cathkin High School have created postcards with heartfelt messages which will be added to the welcome packs refugees receive when they arrive in Glasgow.

The packs are issued by Refuweegee, a charity which supports refugees in the city.

Students learned of the charity and its work as part of the ‘Oor Scotland’ project, a special initiative which covered subjects including religious, moral and philosophical studies (RMPS), English, person social studies and ICT.

It saw pupils learn about the refugee crisis, the perception of Glasgow as a welcoming city and how refugees in particular are made to feel at home.

Their postcards included images of Glasgow on the front, including the Glasgow skyline, the Duke of Wellington statue with a cone on his head, and a rain cloud to remind the refugees that it rains a lot in Glasgow.

On the other side of their postcards, the pupils considered what they themselves would like to hear on arriving to a new city under extreme circumstances like the Syrian refugees are coming from.

They wrote where the best places to eat are in Glasgow, the best sights in the city to go see and mostly they wrote passionately about how this city was now the refugees’ home.

Sarah MacPherson, of Refuweegee, accepted the postcards of behalf of the charity and thanked the youngsters for their hard work.

She said:“Every small act of kindness is hugely important to the lives of these people arriving in Glasgow.

“These amazing postcards will be a constant visual reminder that they are welcome in our city and that they are now safe”.

Mrs Payne, an RMPS teacher who organised the charity’s visit to the school, said it is more important than ever for pupils to learn about the refugee crisis as families continue to arrive in local schools and communities.

She said: “The vital work the Refuweegee charity undertake should overshadow the negative media coverage some of these struggling innocent refugees are receiving.

“Glasgow should be a welcoming and safe environment for these people and our S2s proved that they are willing to be the generation that declares that.”

Refuweegee is a community-led charity set up to ensure that all refugees arriving in Glasgow are welcomed to the city in true Glaswegian style.

It aims to provide every refugee who arrives in the city with a community built welcome pack.

Each pack will contain three categories of items: essentials, Glasgow welcome and ‘letters from the locals’ and as a result of the final category, each pack will be completely individual.

Every small act of kindness is hugely important to these people