Chatterbox: Down to Earth

Imagine you live a peaceful, happy life and have a
wonderful, close-knit family. You go to school, you have fun with your friends,
and you're generally content. Suddenly, though, it seems to you that your own
country has turned against you. Bombs erupt in the street, forcing your family
to stay inside all the time. You can't go to school anymore. Your friends have
disappeared. During the night you hear distant explosions and shouts and
screams. Your present situation is the polar opposite of what your life used to
be.

Eventually, your parents decide it's not safe to stay in
your country anymore. You pack up only what you can carry and leave the only
place you've ever known, for the hope of a better life somewhere else. Your
family joins the stream of millions pouring out of your country, searching for
a safe place. At first it seems fun and adventurous, but that feeling quickly
evaporates as children get sick, food is scarce, your feet ache from walking,
and a general feeling of hopelessness envelops you.

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This is the plight of more than 21.3 million people in the
world. Millions of people from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Sudan, to name
just a few countries, are forced to leave, becoming refugees, and try to find asylum in another
country. These people try to settle in countries like Turkey, where they’re
bursting at the seams with refugees already. They are also turned away from many
countries. And according to the UN Refugee Agency, less than 1% of the world’s
refugees are resettled (which means the careful selection by a country of
refugees allowed to enter the country legally).

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A few weeks ago, a woman came to talk to my AP Language
class about refugees. She works with refugees settled in the US, helping them
to adjust to our culture. She talked about how these people are forced to leave
their home only to be turned away most of the time, or get very low-paying,
factory jobs for example. Many, many children are also born and raised in refugee
camps, which means they don’t even have an official nationality. I really
wanted to share this with others, because raising awareness about the problem
is always the first step in solving it. I hope people on the CB will read this
(long) message and understand this HUGE problem that is refugees and their resettlement.
Refugees are caught in the middle of political conflicts and violence and
forced to leave their home, and that is not ok.

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So whoever’s with me, please respond to this post. This is
essentially a petition for Cricket to publish a story or article in one of their
magazines about refugees. That would raise awareness FAR beyond what we can get
on the CB. I believe it could be possible to publish a captivating,
non-political story about refugees that would help mobilize and inspire
everyone who reads this magazine (which is a lot of people!) to help ameliorate
the condition of refugees. So Admins, I’m not sure if this is how it works in
terms of publishing, but this is a plea to use your
influence as a part of Cricket magazine to submit/recommend this petition and how
many people “sign” it (reply to it) to the editor (who I believe is Lonnie Plecha) in order to get a story
published about refugees. The article/story could be, for example, a story of a girl and her family set in a different time period who are forced to leave their country. It could also include a note at the end about the current refugee crisis. Whatever the format of the story or article, I think it could help the situation at least a little
bit, and who knows, it could have far-reaching effects that no one is aware of right
now.

So if you believe in raising awareness about the global
refugee crisis, please reply. Happy Easter! J

Caroline, thank you for your thoughtful comment on this important issue. I've passed your request on to the editors. We'll plan to print some of your comment in an upcoming Letterbox. September is the earliest it may appear. That's how far ahead we work.

Admin