What do you see in the picture? What are they doing? What do you notice about the people, which person do you think this story is about? Are there any clues in the clothes they are wearing?
Deo Kato is an athlete from Uganda who lives in London. He has recently completed a run from Cape Town to London. He started in July 2023 and arrived in London 516 days later, at the end of December 2024.
Where is Cape Town?
How many miles do you think Deo ran, how many countries do you think he crossed?
Deo ran 7700 miles and crossed 15 countries.
Look at Deo's T-shirt, why do you think he chose to run that far?
Deo was running to raise awareness of racism. He wanted to highlight the history of human migration and the discrimination faced by many black Africans today.
What is migration?
What sort of experiences do you think Deo wants to highlight?
What sort of experiences do you think Deo met along the way?
Deo experienced daily incidents of racism in some parts of Europe as he made his way to England. He suffered abuse from passers by and some police and was even jailed for some weeks. He says in some European countries he felt treated as an illegal immigrant; "I didn't feel welcomed or that I belonged in their society. The police stooped me at least four times a day. Sometimes I caught locals taking photos of me and reporting me to the police."
Why do you think this was happening?
What does this suggest about some parts of society today?
Deo says these experiences made it intensely difficult to keep moving forward. But he did keep going.
Why did he keep going?
But there were many times Deo had experiences that renewed his faith in humanity. In Botswana he was joined by a 15 year old boy who spoke three languages including English. 1800 miles further north in Kenya, he was joined by a group of children who spontaneously joined him for a 5 mile stretch on their way to school.
Overall, his experiences confirmed in Deo's mind that humanity will prevail over prejudice.
What does that mean?
He says, "I think in the future we will create a world free from racial prejudice. It won't happen in my lifetime, I believe that my efforts and those of others who are dedicated to this cause are laying the foundations for the next generation to build upon."
Why do you think Deo says this won't happen in his lifetime, do you agree?
Who are the next generation?
What do you think Deo wants you to do about this?
What can we learn from Deo?
What do we say at our school about racial discrimination?
Why is this about No Outsiders?
Which British Value is this about?
No Outsiders: We belong here by Andrew Moffat (scheme of work for primary schools)
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