Northgate High - Letters to Europe

Writers Centre Norwich organised for over 200 students at schools across Norfolk to work with a professional writer and a refugee to compose a series of Letters to Europe. These letters form part of an international conversation about the future of Europe, and the hopes and dreams young people harbour for it.

We're delighted to post a selection of the letters by Northgate High.

Dear Europe,

As I sit looking out of my classroom window, I wonder what life would be like to be an asylum seeker or a refugee, I wonder how it would be a different life to life as I see it.

I shall keep trying to understand how those people’s lives are, how they have grown up, what they like to do? Do they like being [labelled and put] in a group with others they hardly know, I wonder!

These are the questions I would ask!

Letters to Europe!

Polly aged 12, Northgate High - Letters to Europe Workshop November 2010.

Dear Europe,

I am waiting to see your crystal blue skies which gaze up and see all different shapes in the clouds. I am trying to find a safe place for a while where there is no war, no anger and no frustration. A place that everyday a rainbow will brighten up the grey sky.

I want to wake hearing the birds sing a soothing song. I would sun bathe the white sand. I am stuck on the white sand. I am stuck in a world of war.

I cannot escape and I cannot take the pain much longer.

Madeleine, Northgate High - Letters to Europe Workshop November 2010

Dear Europe,

I feel that Europe is no longer fun anymore. It feels like I am encaged in a small box with no breath holes in the lid, that I have a lack of oxygen, that I have a lack of freedom.

So, I have decided to go to the USA. I will miss the food, the small Narrow roads and the many football stadiums, but I still want to go, I feel like I am not wanted anymore, I feel sad, I feel lonely, I feel like I want to leave Europe forever and start a new life, a fresh start, a job I enjoy, a time of freedom, a time of enjoyment.

So I will step on the plane and go. Go Forever.

Goodbye Europe, Goodbye forever.

Luke, Northgate High- Letters to Europe Workshop November 2010

Dear Europe,

I may see you on a map or be right next to you but that doesn’t mean that I know you any more or any less.

I’d be right next you but I can’t smell your croissants or bolognaise sauce or your fine wine but there may be some in England, but it’s not the same.

Dirk, Northgate High - Letters to Europe Workshop November 2010.