What does it mean to be a refugee? - Benedetta Berti and Evelien Borgman

About 60 million people around the globe have been forced to leave their homes to escape war, violence and persecution. The majority have become Internally Displaced Persons, meaning they fled their homes but are still in their own countries. Others, referred to as refugees, sought shelter outside their own country. But what does that term really mean? Benedetta Berti and Evelien Borgman explain.

Lesson by Benedetta Berti and Evelien Borgman, animation by TED-Ed.

[LazerFliping]

a huge hug to every person who feels bad, even if not on the subject. Be strong. I love you

[TeamTwiistz]

5:03 Everyone seems to forget this important fact.

[isbellaanena]

I’m a refugee from South Sudan 🇸🇸. My mum was pregnant with me and was running from the war in Sudan. I don’t know how she survived. We live in a refugee camp in Uganda 🇺🇬 (where I was born) for many years. We now live in New Zealand 🇳🇿. We’ve been here for almost 10 years and are afraid to go back home due to war, though my mum has been back for funerals.

[alexl]

:c Humans are cruel.

I found out my great grandfather was a refugee, who fled alone from the civil war in china as a young child. They gunned down those that did not return and attempted to enter after refusing them entry. He was one of the lucky ones who successfully made it. I can't imagine what it's like to be alone, witness such horrors as a young child, and still find the strength and desire to survive, but I think that refugees have been through enough and do not need anymore suffering after their escape.

[sghaiermohamed]

This video is unbiased. Its shameful that it got many dislike.

[sin]

although i myself am not a refugee, my family are vietnamese boat people and although i know i will not know how hard my mom and her brother's lives were i appreciate how much they do for me and my sister despite their many troubles traveling here

[EdwardScissorsHands]

Is this a YouTube comment section or a Nazi Reunion?

[abubardewa]

I urge you to not read comment section. Opinions are depressing!

[vannam]

This video touches me deeply. My boyfriend is at refugee from Vietnam. He tells me stories of his earliest memories of his family leaving his birthplace in Veitnam and being transported to America. When he camr to the states he was suffering malnutrition (which effects his body today), changing his name and being disconnected from his culture and language when moving here.

We as humans need to have empathy and compassion for refugees. Imagine being forced from the place you grew up and being placed into a culture that isnt your own? especially being displaced in a country that is in war with our own country....

[jossgoyanko]

In response to the Refugee Crisis in Syria, I once heard someone claim that "if someone offered you a grape, and you knew that, out of that whole bunch, one of them was poisoned, it would make sense not to eat the grapes."

See, the problem with that statement is that you're justifying human cruelty by turning living, breathing people into grapes, something you can throw away without consequence or remorse. So how about this, much more realistic analogy instead?

Let's say someone offered you a bunch of grapes, and, out of a bunch numbering in the hundreds of thousands, one of them was poisoned. But let's say that for every grape you eat that isn't poisoned, someone else gets to live. Someone else gets to escape a life of poverty, disease, and destitution. A family man. A wife. A child. Someone you've never met, and someone who you may never meet, but who needs you at this moment more than anyone else probably ever will to eat a single grape. Would it still be reasonable to refuse? Perhaps. But what ticks me off is a person who does that and claims that they're trying to make their country "Great" again. No. Just no. You cannot make a nation 'great' on the basis of cowardice. As an American, my nation has been accused of many things, but the one thing I thought we'd never allow ourselves to be thought of is a nation of cowards, hiding behind border walls and our own, delusional sense of isolationist exclusionism.

What happened to us? We happened to the home of the brave? How did the huddled masses yearning to breathe free become our enemies?

[abubardewa]

You don't know what it means to be stateless and have no rights at all.

[mog]

amazing video, I don't even want to read any comments, because I lost faith in humanity.

[thatisfunny]

This video has been desperately needed for a long time. My fear is that I have seen little change in attitude towards this issue, and even less widely accessible information (of the statistic kind) to help people make if not right, but informed decisions on the topic. This is a humanitarian crisis, and we can't just leave it as a vague debate. I hope this video goes viral.

[bflat]

My grandfather and his family were lucky to escape Cuba when they did. Each kid left at 15 and had to care for themselves, living on their own for 16 years. They had to rebuild their lives from scratch, going from the top 10% of Cubans to the slums. They worked as hard as they did back home and my grandfather is an anesthesiologist. He could retire, but refuses do his grandkids will have fully paid college tuition. He doesn't want us to go through what he did.

He is my hero.

[ZhiggerA]

I'm a Kurd, and this video made me cry...! :/

[yasmeenonscreen]

As a Syrian-Egyptian-American vlogger I feel like my Arab heritage makes me feel somehow closer to some of the many refugees our world unfortunately has. Syrian refugees and all refugees really need to be given notice. I hope that I can bring light to this topic through my vlogs very soon.

[abhranilmondal]

Let's just for a moment forget everything and become united as a human!
Humanity above everything...

[mohammadbkheet]

I just want to say that the animations are EPIC, may ALLAH ease the pain of refugees
great job Ted

[ScaryGamer]

refuges are human and have the right live in peace, they have nothing to do with war and are only innocent. You people just think your so smart for desliking, you would not be able to live one day in the same situation as them and don't lie to yourself you talk Syrian refuges are bad, buy never talked to them. I hope people will stop being scared of others .

[kingcarlos]

Lets let all the refugees in look how well and safe France and Germany are doing