Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Light up
your news

About Privacy Terms Help

@silvics.bsky.social

55 followers 180 following 11 posts

Posts Replies Media Videos

silvics.bsky.social

@silvics.bsky.social

December 23, 2025 at 6:32 AM

silvics.bsky.social

@silvics.bsky.social

December 22, 2025 at 6:55 AM

Reposted

Steve Peers

@stevepeers.bsky.social

bsky.app/profile/coli...

Colin Elves @colinelves.bsky.social · Sep 3

With alt:

Smajo Beso • Follow
3d • ©
I started school in Newcastle in Year 5 without knowing a word of English. I was nine years old and had arrived as a refugee from Bosnia just a couple of months earlier.
I was one of those strangers our politicians often speak about.
I missed my grandparents and friends. I was having awful nightmares, and I would wake up screaming every single night. I hated going to school. I would sit in my chair, look out of the window, and spend my day daydreaming about ways to run back to Bosnia. I didn't want to be here.
After a couple of weeks at school, my teacher, Miss Webster, and my classmates did something special to help me settle, something that made me feel less of a stranger. That was the first day I went home with a smile on my face.
I have shared this story before, but as tomorrow is start of the new school year, I thought I would share it again.
**

Miss Webster was amazing, but I couldn't understand a word she was saying. She had this ritual where, at the end of each day, we would all sit on the floor around her, she would play the guitar, and we would all sing a song together.
I couldn't understand what they were singing, but I could see she would sing one part of the song, then she would say someone's name or point to them. The next part of the song would be sung with that person's name in it, and they would get to go home first.
My classmates loved this, but I hated it. It annoyed me because I couldn't understand what they were singing, but if I am honest, l hated it mainly because of how happy they all were. I definitely wasn't happy. I cried myself to sleep nearly every night.
I eventually started having separate English lessons, which I enjoyed more because it took me out of the classroom. It was always daunting coming to school because I felt everyone was looking at me or speaking about me. For months, my dad would stand with me outside the school gates in the morning until it was time to go in.

One day I came back into the classroom from my English lesson. We sat down, and everyone was extra-excited, looking at me more than usual for some reason. Of course, I thought it was because I was a refugee, because I couldn't speak English, or because they couldn't pronounce my name. I was bracing myself for another afternoon of my classmates encouraging me to sing. This was probably the closest I came to running out.
So we were all sitting on the floor around Miss Webster. She was holding her guitar, ready to sing. I remember the sun shining through the tall, narrow windows as I slowly drifted into a daydream of being back in Bosnia. She began playing the guitar, my classmates joined in, but this time, everything was different. I froze. I understood what they were signing. Not because I had miraculously learned English in one afternoon, but because they were singing in Bosnian for me. I looked around in shock, and they were all smiling at me, and for a moment I thought I was daydreaming.

While I was having separate English lessons, Miss Webster had taught our entire class to sing this song for me in Bosnian. They sang it terribly, but it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. I skipped home that day with a huge smile on my face. For the first time, I looked forward to going back to school the next day.
I have often imagined Miss Webster and my classmates rehearsing, struggling with the strange Bosnian words and laughing at themselves. For me, that effort was the ultimate recognition, an act of peace that felt like the opposite of everything I had known during the war. It was special.
I do not know if they realised it then, but that moment helped to give me back my dignity, my belonging, and, for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel like I was just a refugee or an outsider. I was home.

September 3, 2025 at 9:06 PM

Reposted

Climate Resistance

@climateresistance.bsky.social

BREAKING 🚨: LUXURY HOTEL CEO PUNCHES PEACEFUL ACTIVIST... TWICE

She was protesting a private jet conference. #AbolishBillionaires

February 4, 2025 at 4:32 PM

Reposted

JoJoFromJerz

@jojofromjerz.bsky.social

I don’t fucking think so.

January 31, 2025 at 10:26 PM

Reposted

Plastic Martyr

@plasticmartyr.bsky.social

January 30, 2025 at 5:30 PM

Reposted

altNOAA 🇺🇸

@altnoaa.bsky.social

The White House has suddenly removed this page.

whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/...

January 30, 2025 at 5:42 PM

Reposted

Jeremy Corbyn

@jeremycorbyn.bsky.social

Fascism doesn’t arrive in uniform overnight. It arrives with suited politicians, one piece of legislation — or executive order — at a time.

My piece for @tribunemagazine.bsky.social to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

tribunemag.co.uk/2025/01/jere...

Jeremy Corbyn: Remembering Auschwitz, Fighting Today

As we mark the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, we must remember the heroic resistance of many inmates to inspire our struggle against renewed fascism today.

tribunemag.co.uk

January 27, 2025 at 1:56 PM

Reposted

Jay Lionel

@jaylionel.bsky.social

January 26, 2025 at 5:12 PM

Reposted

Karin Schall

@karinschall.bsky.social

Afternoon chalking. #firsttheycame

January 25, 2025 at 6:47 PM