Over the duration of the semester, my group and I set out to cover what is widely know as the “Refugee Crisis” in the Middle East, covering specifically where refugees are fleeing from, and why they are being forced to. While the crisis in the middle east, and especially Syria is largely covered by many major news systems, our group also highlighted crises happening in Africa, as many people are displaced in that area of the world, with little knowledge in the global media. Another focus was to look at immediate impact on nations receiving immigrants, as a mass influx of, at times, millions of people can put tremendous economic pressure on a country, as well as create difficult living arrangements for the new people within the country. Our group analyzed multiple countries within Africa and the Middle East, looking at the major factors, whether political divisions in the case of South Sudan, terrorist threats in countries like Nigeria and Syria, as well as Civil War and government instability in Syria. Another factor separate from these is the drought happening in Syria, a natural cause for people to leave the country. As there are so many instances of people being displaced and having to relocate in another country, it was impossible to analyze every country and every push factor in this so-called “crisis.”
In terms of research, there seemed to be a lot of credible, and easily accessible information, mainly because the “refugee crisis” is a fairly recent event happening over the past couple decades, as well as being a huge human rights issue, many agencies have put out information surrounding the severity of the crisis, along with how individuals are being affected, and most importantly, why. Many large news outlets have covered this issue, including CNN, BBC, and al Jazeera, all generating and reporting credible, and accurate information. As a result, it was fairly easy to come up with information to use for the blog posts. In terms of dividing this up among the group, we made sure to break up different sections of information down, and assign each member with a section. For covering the refugee crises in Africa, we went by country, each member choosing a nation to highlight and cover. As for Syria, since the people fleeing from that country have many different factors pushing them, we each took a certain push factor, highlighting the drought, the civil war, and the presence of ISIS, turning that post into an in depth look at some of the major factors pushing people to flee Syria. This strategy worked rather well, as it felt like we were able to highlight the refugee crisis thoroughly and effectively.
In working on this blog, I think I learned a lot, not only about the politics and issues facing other nations, but also in the way that I work in a group setting. In terms of our actual topic, I was definitely able to gain a lot more knowledge on a topic I knew very little about prior to beginning this project. I knew that there was a refugee crisis, but I didn’t know which countries were being affected, and what factors were causing people to flee. With this, I wasn’t aware of the multi-layered issue of Syria as there are many factors pushing people out of the country. I was also exposed to the idea that this refugee crisis happening is also a huge human rights issue. At its core, people are displaced from their homes, and pushed into a new country, with insufficient resources to keep themselves stable outside of their own country. The magnitude of this issue was also very surprising to me, as millions of people are being pushed into surrounding nations, while those host nations are forced into taking these people in, and providing for them, becoming a strain on national economies. In terms of doing research, I learned that I have to be smart in researching, and where I find the best information. Seeing as this is a large global issue that has come into play fairly recently, most of the good information was found through newsgroups. As for working in a group, I came to realize that communication, and carefully planned work leads to effective group work. When we were organized, and knew exactly who would cover what, we worked most efficiently, and produced a good collection of information and analysis. I think this is something I will definitely apply to other group projects that I have, as I felt this one was executed very smoothly and efficiently.
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