**CANCELLED The Refugee Experience: Resettlement and Acculturation**

The Refugee Experience - Learning Through Simulation: Resettlement and Acculturation

Participants are highly encouraged to sign up for all three classes. However, you can choose to sign up for any 1 or 2 classes as well. Being in all three parts of the class will allow for a deeper understanding of the refugee experience and the trauma they have to overcome when resettling in the United States.

Facilitator: Sam Ouk, Equity Director, Prior Lake/Savage Area School District

Audience: Teachers, School Administrators, School Support Staff, Equity Directors & Specialists

These sessions take participants through real life scenarios of what refugee families endure during times of war. Participants learn about events of the Killing Fields in Cambodia through simulating lived experiences of the Killing Field Survivors who resettled in ROchester, MN during the 1980s. Afterwards, the audience will group up and pretend to be a refugee family. Each family will make decisions around life and death scenarios provided to them that have been modeled from real life situations.

At the end of the two simulations, we will discuss what it takes for families and students to move on and find closure after experiencing such horrific traumas. We explore what schools, teachers and the community can do to help provide a positive accultuation expereince for refugeses and avoid certain mistakes that will lead to cultural dissonance and young refugees experiencing the feeling of loss of hope. The guiding question to this discussion is, "What happens when hope dies?"

Even though the stories used in this simulation are particular to Cambodian refugees who survived the Killing Fields, the experiences and sicussions to follow will be relevant to all refugees and people who work with refugees.

The Refugee Journey: After the refugees resettle in America what needs to be done to move from surviving life to living again. Research studies and strategies will be presented in this class to help create a deeper understanding for participants around the struggles of refugee resettlement.

Sambath (Sam) Ouk and his family survived the Cambodian Killing Fields and immigrated to the United States in 1982. Sam grew up in Rochester, Minnesota where he experienced the struggles of navigating a new culture and language while fighting through the hardships of racial hate and systemic racism in the schools. With the help of caring teachers, he would go on to overcome those barriers and went forward to graduate from Hamline with a French Major and an Education Minor. He continued on with his education to achieve his Masters in ESL from Hamline and his Principal's License from St. Mary's University. In K-12 education, he has worked as a para, an EL Teacher, and the Coordinator of Equity and Multilingual Learners Program. he is currently the Director of Equity and Inclusion for the Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools. Sam is a leader in refugee education and has written an award winning research on the topic of positive acculturation for refugees.

Tuition:

$75 BrightWorks Member Rate

$90 Standard Rate

Please make checks payable to BrightWorks and mail to: 

BrightWorks
Attn: Brittany Stepan
2 Pine Tree Drive, Suite 101
Arden Hills, MN 55112

Please note: If an invoice is required, an additional fee of $10 will be applied. 

Cancellation: You can cancel your own registration for an event before the cancellation deadline. (Please check the event information for specific cancellation details.) If the event has a fee, refunds are possible only if cancellation is prior to the deadline. If you do not attend and do not cancel prior to an event, you are still responsible for payment and will be billed.

Special Accommodations: Please alert BrightWorks 2-3 weeks prior to the workshop/event if you need special accommodations, including sign language interpreters. (BrightWorks requires a notice of 2 business days to cancel a sign language interpreter. If you fail to cancel, we reserve the right to bill your school/district for this expense.) Update your profile as needed. Special accommodations are not included with each registration, but are stored in your profile until you make changes.