Living in Christchurch, New Zealand has been incredibly sad over the last few weeks. On 15th of March a terrorist entered two mosques in our city and opened fire on people while they worshipped.
The grief and sorrow of this is hard to put into words.
Many of those who lost their lives had come to NZ to make a life at a distance from their original homes, making home on this whenua (land) in our city.
While this was happening I was reading We Are Displaced by Malala Yousafazi with contributions from other refugees from around the world.
The stories in this book are beautiful and painful and hopeful. Now in our history more than ever we must see the humanity and the human stories that are unique and universal to people who have been displaced from their homes by politics, persecution and war.
These are the stories our children must read and that we must position ourselves to hear not just in books and online but in person from those in our communities who have these heartbreaking stories too.
The stories in the book are written as records of different young women and girls who have had to leave their homes and build new lives in different places.
We must see one another not as an 'other' but as a person - with stories and hopes and talents and joys.
This book is an excellent and accessible read and I'll be encouraging many people to read it and enter in to deeper understanding and hopefully to be people who build a more welcoming space in their communities for the richness new people bring.
Details - Hachette NZ, Jan 2019, RRP $34.99
love you more than Dave Dobbyn's song Welcome Home xxx
