Sign in
18 September 2026
Read time: 7mins
‘Every film screening elicited lengthy discussion in many different directions, and I saw that teachers could use the films in many ways, reflecting on questions and themes across geography and the humanities including migration, citizenship, displacement, cities, development and climate, as well as gender, place-based learning and alternative or informal economies.’
Yasmin Fedda
I am delighted to partner with the Geographical Association on this new, free film-based resource for teachers that can enable teachers and students to think critically about questions of forced migration and displacement, as well as global citizenship, economic activity and development.
The beginning of the How We Work project
How We Work began as a film project associated with the ‘Protracted Displacement Economies’ multi-university research project led by the University of Sussex, with which I travelled and collaborated with academic research teams in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Lebanon, Myanmar/Thailand and Pakistan from 2022 to 2024.
The project was concerned with the economic lives of long-term displaced communities and also the ‘displacement-affected community’, including the ‘host’ population, among others. The ‘economy’ is understood to involve both financial and non-financial transactions, like mutual aid and feminist economics. This to me, was a very rich area to research.
Background information from UNHCR
In 2024, UNHCR estimated 122.6 million people had been forcibly displaced as a ‘result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order.’ [1] In June 2024, worldwide figures counted 43.7 million refugees, 8 million asylum seekers, and 72.1 internally displaced people (IDPs).
It is expected that the 2025 count will be higher still. Low and middle income countries host 71% of the world’s refugees, and notably, 69% of refugees are hosted in neighbouring countries. The majority of refugees globally have been displaced and in precarious situations for over five years, a threshold usually referred to as ‘protracted’.
The ability to work and enjoy the dignity of being able to sustain oneself is a central conundrum for displaced peoples – further exacerbating the sense of limbo and economic pressure of not being able to return home, often not being welcomed in their ‘host’ country and not being able to go elsewhere.
Workshops with young filmmakers
I ran a series of intensive creative documentary filmmaking workshops with young filmmakers in each location to make short creative documentaries around questions of work.
A three-person filmmaking team in Beirut insisted on making a film about the concept of ‘neighbourliness’, an experience they valued as Syrian refugees living in Lebanon.
For the filmmaking team in Kitchanga, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo – a town that has seen many waves of internal displacement – it was crops and local markets that mattered most: in their film, they followed the journey of sorghum from harvest to flour to market, the film also underlining the ways that displaced women teach each other and pass on the skills of the trade.
The filmmaking team in Pakistan, looked to an Afghan man who employs both Afghans and locals at his coal yard; the team in Addis Ababa portrayed a young Somali woman who had taught herself Amharic, and worked as a translator for newly arrived Somalis.
Meanwhile, the team on the Thailand/Myanmar border in Thailand filmed with a young trans woman who ran an online business selling tea and coffee.
The dynamism and warmth of the short films produced in these contexts invited a further question – what if these could be used as a teaching resource?
Workshops with teachers
I took the question to students and teachers, running several workshops throughout 2024 and 2025, to consider what kind of resource would be valuable to develop, to better understand the needs of UK classrooms today.
Every film screening elicited lengthy discussion in many different directions, and I saw that teachers could use the films in many ways, reflecting on questions and themes across geography and the humanities including migration, citizenship, displacement, cities, development and climate, as well as gender, place-based learning and alternative or informal economies. With the support of Queen Mary University of London, I was able to work with several secondary teachers to develop the resources for key stages 3, 4 and 5 classroom use.
One teacher later reflected ‘I’ve never seen my form group so quiet, focused, and reflective. It challenged their perceptions of refugee status and immigration.’
Another shared ‘Migration is a broad subject, but it is not well embedded in the national geography curriculum. Students often encounter only the most familiar narrative: migration for economic opportunity, moving toward global cities in search of a better life. What is much less visible is migration within low-income regions, migration driven by conflict, or long-term displacement that reshapes entire communities over decades. As a result, there is a gap between the realities of migration and what students encounter in the classroom.
This is where the films and the associated teaching resources become particularly valuable. They allow students to see these realities rather than simply reading or being told about them.’
I hope that having ready-to-use worksheets and structured activities makes a real difference, so that teachers can integrate the films easily into classrooms.
How to use the resources
Choose one film to focus on, or make a selection of films (whatever works best for your classroom). The films look at a range of issues in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Lebanon, Myanmar/Thailand and Pakistan. A full list of the films and the themes they focus on are listed in the welcome page. Please note that these are not exhaustive and you may want to draw out other themes.
Each film has a workbook that includes a country information sheet, a film information sheet, and teaching activities, which vary but generally include: quizzes, discussion prompts, essay questions, and further resources for KS3–5.
We have included focus notes and answers where the concepts are more advanced but please adapt as needed to your classroom and context. You may use any of these on their own or use the whole workbook.
You can access How We Work films and classroom resources for free here
The welcome page can be downloaded here
Written by Yasmin Fedda, Senior Lecturer in Film Practice at School of the Arts, Queen Mary University of London
© Yasmin Fedda and The Geographical Association, 2026.
