Three teenagers passionate about the plight of Syrian refugees have used their technology smarts to promote change and improve opportunities for people fleeing their homes.
"This is something that could actually work out," Laef Kucheran, Inquiry Hub student
Twins Laef and Alin Kucheran, 15, and Stefan Clarinval, 14, have started a website (thegoodsite.org/ted) and a social media campaign to spread the word of Alexander Betts, a University of Oxford professor who is a harsh critic of modern refugee policies.
"With something like this, the goal is to spread it to politicians, something that actually can do some good," said Laef, who is a Grade 9 student at Inquiry Hub, School District 43's self-paced learning school.
"I see this as a nicer form of clicktivism [where people use technology to promote social change]," he said. "This is something that could actually work out."
The youths got turned on to Betts' message while watching his TED talk that was streamed live at their school in February. "We thought this is something that we could spread to people and could do something cool."
They were impressed with Betts' solutions for ending the refugee crisis that has millions of displaced people sitting in camps, living hand to mouth in urban cities or risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea to get to Europe.
According to Betts, Syrians should be given special visas and allowed to catch a discount flight to the country of their choice, where they would be encouraged to work or start businesses with policies that would facilitate entrepreneurship.
Betts, who studies migration policies, says similar policies have been used in Uganda and Brazil with great success and his TED talk points out that 300 children have died crossing the Mediterranean since the tragic death of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old nephew of Coquitlam resident Tima Kurdi.
By connecting thegoodsite.org/ted with the website everypolitician.org, the SD43 students have established a website where people can contact politicians in their home country and send them Betts' TED Talk. The boys also plan to make a video and send it out on social media to capture people's attention.
Spreading the word is critical to their goal, they say, and while Betts' TED Talk has already been seen by more than 500,000 people, "If each of those 500,000 could send the talk to each of their representatives, that would be amazing," Laef said.
