Classroom activities and resources: Olympics and sports special edition

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Contents

Introduction ...... 3 Classroom Activities ...... 4 Olympic Refugees ...... 4 , the refugee who has made football his home ...... 8 The Guardian, Saturday 17 March 2012 ...... 8

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Introduction

In summer 2012, London will be under the spotlight when it hosts the Olympic Games. Athletes and spectators from all around the world will arrive in the United Kingdom to be part of the Games. This unique event allows different cultures to come together and mix (for athletes this will mean living together in the Olympic Village). For many athletes, the Olympics are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to represent their country in a global event. Many migrants and refugees have risen to that stage and represented the country that granted them asylum.

In 2008, Lopez Lomong (born in what is now South Sudan) was given the honour of representing his country of asylum, the United States. He was also chosen to be the US flag bearer. The basketball star Luol Deng will be representing Team GB at the Olympics. Deng fled his home country, Sudan, as a child and sought asylum with his family in the UK.

Another refugee athlete hit the headlines in 2012: Fabrice Muamba, the Bolton Wanderers football player who suffered a heart attack while playing an FA Cup match. Despite having arrived in Britain at the age of 11, unable to speak any English, Muamba went on to achieve 10 GCSEs and A-levels in English, French and Maths. He has achieved further success in football, representing England at all youth levels, including the under-21 squad. Muamba’s story is a perfect example of schools representing the first step towards full integration for children from a refugee background.

Our resources for schools enable teachers to build refugee themes into their curriculum. This special edition builds on our two previous resource packs, available to download from our website (http://www.employabilityforum.co.uk/refugees-into-schools/). We recommend consulting the first two packs for more background information on refugee and asylum issues, including statistics and other useful facts. A compiled version of all packs will be available shortly.

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Classroom Activities

These activities are designed to increase awareness and knowledge of who refugees are and why they had to leave their countries. They are aimed at clarifying the differences between refugees and other types of migrants, provoking discussion about the obstacles and integration challenges faced by refugees, and asking pupils to place themselves in the shoes of refugees through role plays and other empathy-building activities.

Olympic Refugees

Kick off a discussion about refugees by focusing on a very topical issue: the 2012 London Olympics. First, ask pupils to read the following text highlighting Olympic refugees, and then hold a classroom discussion using the questions below.

“Refugee Olympic Athletes”1 a) At the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games, the American flag was borne by a young man who had only been a US citizen since 2007: the track and field athlete Lopez Lomong. Born in South Sudan as Lopepe Lomong, he was displaced by the Sudanese civil war and spent 10 years in a refugee camp in Kenya, where he came by the nickname “Lopez”. He arrived in America at the age of 16 and achieved sporting success at high school as well as collegiate track and field competitions.

In the run up to the Beijing Olympics, Lomong campaigned hard to be the flag bearer. He was chosen by the Olympic team captains for being so clearly proud of his new American citizenship. b) This year, another refugee athlete is training hard to represent Norway as a marathon runner. Urige Buta is of Ethiopian origin and fled his home in 2003 after his father was arrested for his political views. Buta attained Norwegian citizenship in 2011.

His training regime is a far sight more difficult than most other Olympic hopefuls’. Since he works as a caretaker, Buta fits his training schedule around his shifts at work. He also does not have access to the high-end training facilities that many other athletes take for granted. The cold Norwegian climate means that he spends the winter months training in an underground service tunnel intended for sewage pipes. There is another reason why his training was challenging: when he started out, Buta only had refugee status and could not easily travel abroad to attend races. Even

1 Sources: http://asia.eurosport.com/olympic-games/london-2012/2012/janitor-set-for- olympics_sto3206824/story.shtml and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lopez_Lomong. 4 Version 3 – June 2012

after becoming a full-fledged citizen, he has to pick races that allow him to return home in time for his Monday morning work shift.

His employers have now given him paid leave to train for the summer Olympics. He is not expected to attain a medal, but may well place in the top 12, the best result Norway could expect for decades.

Questions

1. Why do you think it might be important to a refugee to compete in the Olympics for their country of asylum? How do you think a refugee athlete might feel carrying a flag or singing their “new” national anthem?

2. Do you think there should be any restrictions on refugees representing their new countries in the Olympics? Why?

3. What are the possible obstacles that refugee athletes may face when preparing for such a large sporting event? Do you think they are different than those faced by the majority of Olympic athletes? Why or why not?

Famous Refugee Athletes

Now that you have raised the question of refugee athletes, broaden the discussion by asking pupils if they can think of any other famous sportspeople from a refugee background. Chances are many will know this one…

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Fabrice Muamba

Fabrice Muamba is a footballer who plays for Bolton Wanderers. On 17th March 2012, he suffered a heart attack that almost killed him while playing in an FA Cup quarter-final match against Tottenham Hotspur.

Ask pupils to read these two articles from the Guardian and the Telegraph (also available at the back of this pack). While they are doing this, write the following questions on the board, and see if pupils can extract the correct information. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/mar/17/fabrice-muamba-bolton-wanderers http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/news/9150696/Fabrice-Muamba-collapses- at-Tottenham-v-Bolton-game.html

1. Where was he born?

In Kinshasa, formerly Zaire and now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

2. When and why did he come to the UK?

His father fled the country in 1994 because of his political views and arrived in the United Kingdom seeking asylum. In 1999, he was granted indefinite leave to remain, at which time he was joined by the rest of the family.

3. Was he a good student?

Despite having arrived in Britain at the age of 11, unable to speak any English, Muamba went on to achieve 10 GCSEs and A-levels in English, French and Mathematics.

4. Is he eligible to play for England?

Yes. In fact, he represented England at all youth levels, including the under-21 squad. As a naturalised British citizen, Muamba is eligible to play for any of the Home Nations in which he has received three years of full time education before the age of 18, or lived in for five years. Muamba was also called up to the DR Congo squad in May 2007, but declined so as to remain eligible for England.

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Now ask pupils if they know of any other athletes from refugee backgrounds that have succeeded in reaching a high level in their chosen sport? Introduce the following examples:

 Luol Deng, currently playing basketball for the Chicago Bulls in the NBA and for team GB at the Olympics. He was born in what is now South Sudan in 1985. He then moved with his family to the UK, after being granted asylum, and became a UK citizen in 2006. He grew up in Brixton, where he started playing basketball, and represented Croydon Borough at the London Youth Games, before moving to the US aged 14.

 Martina Navratilova, born in Czechoslovakia, tennis legend and all-time record winner of 177 tournaments, applied for political asylum in the United States in 1975. She eventually regained Czech citizenship in 2008.

 Shefki Kuqi, born in Yugoslavia, is a -born refugee to Finland who spent most his career playing professional football in England. He had spells at Newcastle United, Wednesday, Ipswich Town, Blackburn Rovers, Crystal Palace, Fulham and Swansea City and is currently playing for League One side Oldham Athletic. He has made over 500 career league appearances, scoring almost 150 goals.

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Fabrice Muamba, the refugee who has made football his home

The Guardian, Saturday 17 March 2012

A meeting recalled with the modest, promising young player who was filled with hope after fleeing a civil war

There is something deeply chilling when a young, apparently fit, professional footballer can suddenly be face down on the turf and it is very apparent, just from the speed at which people are moving around him, the urgency of their body language and the way the other players are reacting, crying, praying, barely able to watch, that this is absolutely terrible.

Fabrice Muamba was having a decent game for Bolton Wanderers in their FA Cup tie at . Nothing too spectacular, but that is not his kind of style anyway. We are talking here about the classic midfield type, winning the ball, laying it off, quick to get back when the other side had possession. Disciplined, energetic, combative. And then, suddenly, inexplicably, lying on the grass, eyes closed, without a single player anywhere near him. Those are the moments when everything goes into slow-motion and it is impossible to feel anything but helpless.

Everything had been so innocent a few hours earlier when the Bolton team coach inched through the gates at White Hart Lane and Muamba posted a message on Twitter letting his followers know the players were in place, followed by the hashtag COYW – meaning 'Come on you Whites'. This was a young man, still three weeks away from his 24th birthday, looking forward to playing at a ground that is no more than three miles away from where he went to school.

Within hours, Twitter had become the online equivalent of a hospital waiting room. "Pray for Muamba" was trending and it was very clear from the messages of so many people within the game that we are talking here about a popular and likeable member of every dressing room where he has ever played. Everyone who has spoken about Muamba from first-hand experience has said roughly the same things: that he is always smiling, a loyal friend, someone who will do anything to help the people who are close to him and, in a professional sense, exudes a quiet determination to make the most of his career.

The first time I met him was at Birmingham City's training ground four years ago. Muamba had just signed from Arsenal for £4m and, as tends to happen when a black guy has that long, leggy stride and plays in central midfield, he was being talked about as the new . If that was the case, Arsène Wenger would never have let him go. But Muamba had already represented England's Under-21s by then and it did not seem out of place, at the age of 20, that he should speak about wanting to win senior caps and play in big international tournaments.

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He was confident enough, but certainly not cocky, and even a little uncertain at first about why anyone would want to interview him. More than anything, there was something very likeable about him. Muamba was different to the average footballer. Little things like being on time and thanking me for making the journey to see him. He did not have his agent with him and he didn't treat every question like a trap. At the end, he wanted to know when it was going to be published because it would be nice to keep a copy for his mum.

This was the first time he had lived alone and it transpired he had been watching Ready Steady Cook to try to teach himself how to drum up a few meals.

But it was when Muamba opened up that it became clear he had a remarkable story to tell and that, for all the innocent little jokes about boiled eggs and culinary disasters, this was a young man who had grown up in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and had seen, close-up, the brutality of one of the bloodiest civil wars in history. It became clear that the only reason Muamba was in England is because his father, Marcel, was a political refugee, granted indefinite leave on the basis that his life would be in danger if he were made to return to Africa. Muamba talked of going to sleep at night amid the backdrop of gunfire. His uncle, Ilunga, was murdered. Friends and neighbours died, too. When it was safe, he and his friends would play football but, very often, they would be called back inside.

Marcel had to leave the country because the alternative, almost certainly, was that he would be found and killed. He had been a politician affiliated to President Mobotu Sese Seko's government and that made him an obvious target when the anti-Mobutu rebels combined to form the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Zaire. So he took his family to Ilunga's house then fled for England, living in detention centres and fighting the system until he was granted asylum.

"He just came in to see me one morning and told me he was going out," Muamba said. "I asked him where but he just said he had to go. I said, 'OK, see you when I see you.' I didn't realise he was going to the airport and leaving."

They did not see each other for three years until Marcel's wife, Gertrude, arrived at Heathrow with an 11-year-old Fabrice. "It was 6 December 1999, and it was the kind of coldness I had never known. It was the first time I had seen snow. I was shivering when I got off the plane but it was worth it. We saw my father and we all ran up to each other and started hugging. It was the start of our new life."

The young Muamba did not speak a word of English when he arrived in London and was so scared of making a fool of himself at school in Waltham Forest he would go for hours without speaking. Even when he learned the language he seldom talked of his past and almost never about what happened to Ilunga. "Nobody has ever told me what exactly happened and I don't ask because I don't want to know," he told me. "All I know is that he was killed."

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He made his friends at school through playing football. He had reached 6ft by the age of 14 and Arsenal got to hear about him when he asked for a trial. Muamba was fast- tracked through the club's academy system and, at 17, made his first-team debut in a Carling Cup tie against Sunderland in October 2005. A season-long loan was arranged with Birmingham in 2006-07 and eventually Steve Bruce, then the manager at St Andrews, persuaded Wenger to let him go.

Muamba played at Birmingham only a year before signing for Bolton, for £5m, in 2008. He was the Bolton News' player-of the year in 2010 and the game at Spurs was to take him one appearance shy of his 150th match for the club. Perhaps, one day, he will make it to that point and beyond. For now, though, we can only hope. Muamba has a young son, Joshua, and got engaged to Shauna, his girlfriend, on Valentine's Day. Vincent Kompany, one of countless footballers to express their emotions via Twitter, summed it up: "Too young to die."

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Fabrice Muamba collapses at Tottenham v Bolton game

The Daily Telegraph, Saturday 17 Mar 2012

Footballer Fabrice Muamba is critically ill in hospital after collapsing on the pitch during an FA Cup quarter final match.

Muamba, the Bolton Wanderers midfielder, fell to the ground suddenly - 41 minutes into the game against Tottenham Hotspur, at White Hart Lane, which was on live television. No other players were near him at the time. The match was abandoned as both teams’ doctors spent ten minutes treating him on the pitch in front of around 35,000 fans.

Muamba, 23, was taken to the Heart Attack Centre at the London Chest Hospital. In a statement tonight, his club said he was in a critically ill condition in intensive care. Reporters at the game said he was not breathing as he was stretchered off the pitch and into an ambulance. As he fell to the ground, Bolton manager ran on to the pitch to see what had happened. Coyle and club captain went with him to hospital. Other players gathered round and , the Dutch Spurs player, and others prayed while doctors treated him. Fans chanted Muamba’s name, while many were in tears. Several minutes after play stopped because of Muamba’s collapse, , the referee, ordered the players off the pitch and fans were told the game had been abandoned. Ian Dennis, of BBC 5Live, said spectators could see that a defibrillator was being used on the footballer. He said: “You had a situation which was very eerie. Obviously everybody could see that Fabrice Muamba was fighting for his life out on the pitch. Supporters of both sides were chanting his name.”

The scene recalled memories of Cameroon’s Marc Vivien-Foe, 28, who collapsed and died during a Confederations Cup match against Colombia, in Lyon, in 2003. Phil O’Donnell, 35, the Motherwell midfielder, died after collapsing during a match against Dundee United in December 2007.

Muamba was born in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. His father, Marcel, fled to the UK in 1994 - having been an adviser to President Mobutu Sese Seko - and was given indefinite leave to remain in 1999, when the rest of his family joined him in Walthamstow, east London. The player, who has represented England at every level, from under 16 to 21, was 11 when he came to the UK and could not speak English. He went on however to earn 10 GCSEs as well as A-levels in French, maths and English. Off the pitch he enjoys listening to opera music. On his Twitter account he describes himself as a “proud dad” to Joshua Jeremiah, his child with Shauna Magunda, to whom he became engaged on Valentine’s Day. He joined Arsenal in 2002, having supported the team as a child in Congo, and became a professional in 2005. The following year he joined Birmingham, first on loan, and then on a permanent basis following a £4 million deal. In 2008, he joined Bolton for £5 million, and now lives in Cheshire.

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Fans said silence descended over the ground as it became clear how serious the situation was. Paul Bowman, 53, a Tottenham fan from London Colney, Hertfordshire, said: "The player went down with no-one near him. He just collapsed." Mr Bowman, who was at the match with his three children, added: "The other players saw immediately that this looked bad. We could see they were trying to resuscitate him. Everyone was in shock. We all watched and waited. "All the support staff and substitutes were on the pitch. Fans from both teams were chanting Muamba's name." "The players were in shock. No-one wanted it to go on. "It was eerie coming out of the ground. No-one was saying anything. There was hush, a silence. No-one could quite believe it. It was terrible."

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