Di Baladna (Our Land) by Emtithal Mahmoud

• About this resource

  World champion poet and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Emtithal (Emi) Mahmoud’s wrote the poem, Di Baladna, which means Our Land in Arabic, following a series of discussions with refugees living on the front lines of the climate crisis in Bangladesh, Cameroon, and Jordan. The individuals she spoke to represent millions of displaced and stateless people around the world who are currently living in climate vulnerable “hotspots” yet adapting to an increasingly inhospitable environment, despite the limited resources.

  You can read more about this here: Emtithal Mahmoud calls for urgent climate action in poem | UK for UNHCR

• Testimonies from educators

  “I would always have used an awful lot of poetry from the Global South. I just think poetry connects very deeply with us, and having children write their own poetry about issues is really powerful. It can get the emotion across maybe, in a much more powerful way than other avenues. Because I think through the medium of poetry, children can really articulate what they want to say. I suppose over the years I've gone from maybe a sort of a scientific approach looking at climate change, you know? When I started to teach more climate change, I would have children crying about it, you know, and just that sense of powerlessness. And I would always say to them, ‘well, look, we're going to try and do something’. [This particular poem] is written from the point of view of speaking to future generations, and ‘if you are listening to this’, you know?” Dublin-based primary educator.

  “That's something that I'm probably going to try and explore in my context: that kind of literacy element of things and how we can connect, maybe a few different text sets. Like, maybe poetry, maybe a picture book. And pull together something [on climate justice] that would have a literacy focus". Dublin-based senior primary educator.