Ones We Left Behind - part two and three

This resource is a Lesson starter for performance art students 16+. It will help in learning about the impact on the lives of families and diverse communities when we leave loved ones behind to start a new life in a new country. Teachers will find the resource useful in encouraging students to look outwards with curiosity and respect, listening to and learning from real voices, and identifying that which is specific and unique. The information came from oral history workshops and community research in London in 2006 from diverse communities about families separated by continents, relocating to new countries, and merely moving from one city to another. These stories formed the basis for truthful, high-quality dramas, which genuinely celebrate diversity.
This resource is the second, and the third part of the book, The Ones We Left Behind, available on TES. This resource filled with unique supporting photographs, testimonials, family histories, and contributions from secondary school children in London.
Included in the resource is ‘Departure Lounge,’ a dramatic monologue written by Lorna Holder.
Nena, a woman in her forties, sits nervously, waiting for the boarding announcement in the departure lounge at the airport. Now returning to the Philippines after 25 years working in the U.K, Nena has to make a final decision; should she return to the Philippines, to the husband she hardly knows and son whose childhood she missed? Or should she remain working for the family who employ her and the ‘adopted’ English children she has raised?
The monologue, ‘Departure Lounge’ is based on research into the oral histories of Britain’s Filipino community. It was performed at the British Museum in 2006.