What is the UNHCR?

What is UNHCR?

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR, ACNUR in Spanish) is a part of the United Nations. The purpose of this agency is to protect and support refugees when governments or the UN ask for help. The UNHCR helps refugees return home out of their voluntary will, settle locally, or move to a third country according to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and other international law. The agency's headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. It is a member of the United Nations Development Group chaired by United Nations Development Programme. The UNHCR has won two Nobel Peace Prizes in 1954 and in 1981. (information from Simple Wikipedia)

What  does it do?

At the end of 2007, UNHCR was caring for almost 33 million people, of whom nearly 80% were women and children.

UNHCR not only provides aid to refugees but also to other groups such as internal displaced persons, asylum seekers, the stateless, the repatriated and other needy people. There are more than 40 million rootless people either being cared for by UNHCR or outside its field of action in the world, which is one out of every 156 people on the planet. (text from FC Barcelona)

Aid for 60 million people 

Since it was set up more than half a century ago, UNHCR has provided aid to around 60 million people, which has brought it two Nobel Peace Prizes (in 1954 and 1981) and the Principe de Asturias International Cooperation Prize in 2001. 

Refugees are people who are outside their own country due to fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, belonging to a specific social group or for having particular political opinions. Many have fled from war and violations of human rights.  (text from FC Barcelona)

International protection 

UNHCR’s biggest responsibility, called “international protection”, consists of ensuring respect for the basic rights of refugees (including the right to seek asylum) and guaranteeing that no-one will be returned against their will to a country in which they fear persecution. The organisation promotes international conventions on refugees, verifies governmental compliance with international law and provides emergency aid and material support to civilians who flee, providing them with food, water, shelter and medical care.  (text from FC Barcelona)

Seeking solutions 

Along with governments, NGOs and civil society, UNHCR seeks lasting solutions for refugees in three main areas: voluntary repatriation, which is often the preferred solution for most refugees and host governments, although it is not always possible and in these cases UNHCR helps these people to integrate and rebuild their lives in another place, whether in the country of asylum or in a third country which wishes to accept these rootless people in a process of resettlement.  (text from FC Barcelona)

Some advertisements for you to think:

Sainsbury's Christmas advert - 1914

25 years of the Berlin Wall

four zones after WW2 - picture from Wikipedia

The Berlin Wall,  Berliner Mauer in German, separated the city of Berlin in Germany from 1961 to 1989. It separated the eastern half from the western half. For manay it was a symbol of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall was about 168 km (104 miles) long.It was built to prevent people from escaping from the eastern half of Berlin.

After the WW2 ended Germany was divided into four zones, one for each of the main Allied countries: France, United Kingdom, the USA and the Soviet Union. Berlin, its capital, was also divided into 4 zones even though it was inside the Soviet zone. 

In 1949 the British, French and American zones became the Federal Republic of Germany or West Germany and the Soviet part became the German Democratic Republic. As Germans living in the Soviet part of the city tried to escape a wall was built, the Berlin Wall.

Berlin Wall - picture from Wikipedia

The German Democratic Republic was isolated from the rest of the country and it had a communist regime. In the 1980s eastern, communist countries faced collapse and the opposition of people. In October 1989 mass demonstrations against the government in East Germany began.

Eventually, the Berlin Wall was taken down on November 9, 1989.

READ MORE:

• Simple Wikipedia (easy texts for CLIL students)
• Wikipedia in English
• BBC: videos and audio files

Beginning of the First World War - the Assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo

Gavrillo Princip, Franz Ferdinand's murderer

WHAT HAPPENED 100 YEARS AGO?

100 years ago, on the 28th June 1914, the heir to the Austrian Empire, Franz Ferdinand, was murdered in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, while he was visiting the city.

Franz Ferdinand

Bosnia was in the very south-east corner of the Austrian empire and some people there wanted to be independent from Austria and set up their own state which could run itself.

WHY DID THIS MURDER LEAD TO THE WW1?

Serbia was blamed by Austria for this murder. Serbia was near to Bosnia and it had encouraged the Black Hand Gang and given the gang weapons. Serbia hoped that both herself and Bosnia would unite to form a new Balkan state.

Austria decided that Serbia must be punished and planned to invade her. Serbia called on her old friend Russia to help her. Now the alliance/entente came in to play. One country from each was involved on opposite sides. The situation could only get worse.

Serbia would have been easy for Austria to crush but Russia was a different issue. She had a huge army and Austria would not have coped with a Austro-Russian war. Austria called on Germany for help. The German government agreed to this and their response provoked the French government.

However, unknown to anybody other than the German government, the German army had created a plan called the Schlieffen Plan. Schlieffen was a senior German army officer and he believed that the German army was superior to any army in Europe but that it could not fight a war on two fronts - France and Russia. 

However, he calculated that the vast Russian army would take 6 weeks to get itself organised - called mobilisation - and that in that time, the Germans could attack the French, beat them and then send their army across Europe to fight the Russians. The German High Command accepted this plan. But it had one problem. It relied on what the French or Russians did and the actions of one would provoke a German response and not the other way round. In other words, the Germans had to react to a situation as opposed to controlling it.

When France called up her army, Germany had no choice but to carry out the Schlieffen Plan. This plan involved an attack on France via Belgium.

Britain had given Belgium a guarantee in 1839 that if anybody attacked her, Britain would attack the attacker.

Therefore, within weeks of the murder at Sarajevo, five out of the six countries that had signed the two treaties were on the verge of war.

On August 4th, 1914, Germany invaded Belgium. Britain declared war on Germany. France and Russia supported Britain. Austria supported Germany. Only Italy did not get involved - yet.

Every country concerned was convinced that the war would last only from August to Christmas 1914 but it lasted until 1918 and millions of people died in what was later called the Great War.

adapted from  http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/sarajevo_assassination_1914.htm 

Unit 9 - The First World War from Ana Arias Castro

OUR CLIL RESOURCES ABOUT WW1

READ MORE:

• Wikipedia
• History Learning Site
• History
• First World War
• Jetpunk Quizz about WW1

What did the First World War change?

Geography

• Many countries disappeared and others were born:

• Countries disappeared: Russian Empire, Ottoman Empire, Bosnia, Serbia, Austria_hungary, German Empire, Montenegro.
• Countries Changed: Great Britain, Romania, Germany, France, Austria, Hungary, Italy.
• Countries Created: Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Cyprus, Iran, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Danzig, Albania, Ireland, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland.

History

• It was one of the main reasons for the Soviet Revolution in Russia.
• The USA was involved in this originally European war.

Society

• Nazism was born after the Treaty of Versailles.

Women

• Before the war, most women were housewifes. As men went abroad to fight, many women started to work in factories, shops and offices. Women kept economy moving. After the war many women lost their jobs but many others kept them. Read more.

Warfare

• Aircrafts became essential to help ground troops.
• Tanks were used.
• Armies were more mobile.
• The submarine and automatic rifles were first used as weapons.

Economy

• The economy of the USA benefited from the war whereas German economy suffered after the war.