Refugees and migration teaching resources

Use these free migration and refugee teaching resources to promote compassion, informed discussion, and an understanding of the challenges faced by refugees and migrants around the world.

Use our free teaching resources to help young people challenge assumptions about migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, and to develop mutual respect, empathy and understanding. Our activities for teaching about refugees and human migration lesson plans are suitable for Geography, Citizenship and PSHE.

Use our guide for how to teach others about refugees and migrants, including: 

  • what causes people to leave their homes and what their experiences are like
  • the meaning of the terms asylum seekers, migrants and refugees
  • what makes us who we are and how we can understand and celebrate our differences.
     

Empathy plus migration workshop

Book a free Empathy plus migration workshop to help students develop empathy for migrants' moving motives and explore the experience of migration.

Book a workshop now

For questions or feedback about these resources, contact us at redcrosseducation@redcross.org.uk.

Refugees and migration teaching resources

Learning about refugees and migration

refugees-walk-along-road

Understanding people's experience of migration

Activities co-produced by VOICES network ambassadors to help children and young people develop empathy and understanding towards people with migration experience. Suitable for learners ages 10 to 16.

Explore migration learning resources

In the news

Conflict in Sudan image 1

Newsthink: Conflict in Sudan

Explore the current crisis in Sudan through a humanitarian lens. Use images to explore the impact the conflict is having on civilians, many of whom have fled their country or are still trying to leave. Suitable for ages 10 to 19.

Newsthink: Conflict in Sudan
A Ukrainian family embraces each other tightly amid the crisis.

Newsthink: Ukraine crisis

Use our Newsthink resource to explore the events in Ukraine through a powerful photo and explore how humanitarian crises affect people. Suitable for ages 11 to 19.

Newsthink: Ukraine crisis
Newsthink_laptop

All newsthink resources

Topical teaching resources exploring the news from a humanitarian perspective. Real-life examples through film clips, photographs and stories linked to the news to prompt discussion and to develop critical thinking and media literacy.

View all newsthink resources

Refugee week

Three women refugees and one man stand together with the leader of a British Red Cross creative workshop for refugees.

Newsthink: Refugee week 2023

Learn about the UK’s annual awareness event – Refugee Week – through a humanitarian lens using this Newsthink resource. Suitable for the top year of Primary and all of Secondary (10-19 years old).

Newsthink: Refugee week 2023
Hands of people who have raised them in the air.

Refugee week 2021: We cannot walk alone

Educate young people on the isolation felt by refugees during the pandemic and how they can help to be more inclusive. Suitable for secondary school aged students (12-18 years old). 

Refugee week 2021: We cannot walk alone
kids-around-table-colouring

Refugee Week resources

Explore our free educational resources for Refugee Week. Engage students with insightful lesson plans and activities that promote understanding and empathy toward refugee experiences.

View all Refugee Week resources

Further learning

Woman dances in traditional cultural clothing in front of a crowd.

Identity and belonging

Activities to encourage children and young people to think critically about stigma and migration, and what makes us who we are. Suitable for ages 7 to 14.

Identity and belonging
British Red Cross record sleeve

Refugee journeys: the long road

Engage with refugee stories by listening to songs based on real-life stories of refugees and asylum seekers, from the album The Long Road. Suitable for ages 14 to 19.

Refugee journeys
Refugees and WWII evacuees

Child evacuees in World War II: Why people leave home

Explore what pupils know and think about refugees and kindness, with a speech by a teenage Queen Elizabeth II to evacuees in World War II. Suitable for ages 7 to 11.

Child evacuees in World War II
Image still from the kind place: we are voices intro film.

We are VOICES podcast

We are VOICES is an award-winning, co-produced podcast series made by the VOICES Network.

Listen to the podcast

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