Origination: The Race Debate

My New Home prog 1: clip 1
Imran, from Pakistan, has been in England for 3 weeks and this is his first day at school. How must it feel to start school when you don't speak the language?

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You can watch the second episode of My New Home on Channel 4 Mon 13 August 9pm

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hi i just wanted to say how sorry i felt for Imran he is such a sweet person and i think that all the kids who bullied him should be ashamed of themselves!! he is such an innocent boy who was finding it hard to make new friends.. and i think his singing was very good x x x i would like to be his friend
- taffyxxx, 18 August 2007

Hello, I watched the first documentary of the children when they first moved to England. Devestatingly, I was unable to watch the 2nd which was shown on the 13th. Will it be repeated? I think this is a truly inspiring story.
- shiriwebb, 14 August 2007

Brilliant, if rather heartbraking, prog last night. Tuned in as I was zappping but Imran's story touched me -- the others did, too, but poor Imran seemed to be experiencing the toughest times. For various reasons, no one seemed able to really help and get through to him: Imran's parents (esp mum...nice and probably too 'humble' to be able to guide him) seemed incapable of directing and understanding him; the Indian youth worker was great, if a bit, remote; the school mistress, meeting with his mum, seemed completely removed from Imran's reality; the art teacher spoke well of him and the head teacher seemed genuinely keen to help him but only as one of a number of other kids. And here we had a truly delightful 'young boy' whose open, other-wordly and innocent smile in a foreign land should have melted everybody's hearts around him and, if they were as sentimental as I'm being now perhaps (!), they should have realised that Imran was a joy to have around as he made the world a better place! Instead they poked fun at him as an oddball who didn't conform either in his clothing or his actions to the so-called norm. Please tell Imran that when he looks back at himself in this prog he should see a wonderfully charming and lovely boy whose misfortune is that other people (his loving but seemingly unable-to-help mum apart) aren't able to see beyond their own prejudices. His parents should also see their son as a star instead of a misfit - I hope they do, already! Small wonder that the madrassas in Pakistan offer 'safe harbour' to boys like this. Ostracised by their immediate 'society' of school and friends, Imran's dreams of cricket and especially Islam makes him the perfectly exploitable innocent for their out-of-date, out-of-touch, yesterday-men dogma who proclaim the value of religious teaching while (in some cases, we are told) they are doing little more than grooming young boys who will later become their selfish instruments in holy war-inspired acts of evil
- neicow, 14 August 2007