Hello fine and wise and noble theologians.

And thank you very much for joining me for another Religious Education lesson.

Today, we are going to spend our time thinking about the victims of war, the effects of war and why religious believers are motivated to help those victims of war.

Now in order to do that and become a fine theologian, you need to make sure you've got four things for me.

They are a pen, a different colour pen, some paper to work on and of course your theology brains.

Now, if you need to go and fetch any of those things, please pause the video and go and do that now.

So before we begin, just a warning that the lesson we're about to complete contains references to the effects of war and for some people that will be a sensitive topic.

If that applies to you, you may want to do the rest of the lesson with a trusted adult nearby who can support.

So let's have a look at how we are going to become fine theologians today.

We're looking at religious responses to the victims of war.

So the first thing we need to do, is understand the wide-ranging effects of conflict.

Then we need to be able to explain the religious teachings that would motivate both Christians and Muslims to help victims of war.

Before then, looking at some specific examples of Christian and Islamic charities so that we can explain the practical side of it and how they help victims of war.

The effects of war is our first thing to look at.

And of course, as we already know, casualties are an unavoidable part of war.

In addition to the harm that's caused to those directly involved in the fighting, harm is also caused to their families and their friends.

For example, if the main wage earner dies in a war, then their families may struggle financially without them.

If a place of work is destroyed in a war, then nobody who worked there could earn a wage.

If crops are destroyed or water supplies are polluted starvation could follow for those who live in the surrounding area.

Now in the UK, if a member of the military is killed or injured, financial systems are in place to help look after those left behind.

Injured military personnel are able to access free healthcare care with some specialised care being provided by charities like Help For Heroes.

However injury or death can have a devastating effect, not just on those that suffer, but also the friends and family and can cause longterm emotional wounds.

And we're going to be thinking now, not just about the physical damage that war can cause but also the psychological damage, the environmental damage, the financial damage, as well as the political damage that can happen as a consequence of conflict.

So just a quick recap of what I've just said there.

Casualties are unavoidable.

We know and we understand that tragic fact, however, the effect of war a much more wide-ranging than just being limited to those who are hurt or killed in the conflict.

So to help us understand and explain some of the more wide-ranging effects of conflict, I'd like you please just to pause for a couple of moments and draw the following table.

And you can see we're going to be looking at physical effects, psychological effects, financial effects, environmental effects and the social/political effects of conflict.

So please pause the video now, have a go at that and then join me in a moment once you have drawn your table.

Excellent, so you've got your table drawn.

The next thing we need to do now is fill in the table, using the effects you can see on your screens.

Now, some of these facts can go in more than one column.

So don't worry if you're thinking, "Oh, that could be physical and psychological." You're welcome to put it in both columns, if that is the case.

So again, please pause the video now, fill in your table with the information you can see on your screen, then join me for some feedback in a moment.

So the physical effects will be things like being disfigured, loss of limbs, loss of sight or hearing.

Psychological effects and there's quite a lot that I've put here, post traumatic stress disorder, obviously those who are bereaved from the death of a partner, families being separated, children who might be orphaned, fear and terror from living in life-threatening situations day by day, people having to flee that town or country becoming a refugee.

Financial implications, financial effects of war might be poverty in a family as the main wage earner can no longer work, homes destroyed.

In terms of environmental damage, crops might end up failing and natural habitats can be destroyed.

And the social and political damage, I've kind of put quite a few of these here for you, people having to flee their town or country, that's a political problem, as well as a psychological problem for those that are fleeing, lawlessness and gang violence, where you've got a loss of law and order in areas.

Again, it's a social and political problem.

The loss of infrastructure like power, roads, water or sanitation is also a big problem caused by conflict.

And sometimes particularly when conflict involves a change of leader, political instability and ineffective government can be quite a long-lasting effect of conflict.

So please just pause the video here and check your tables against what you can see on your screens and just make sure you've got everything needed in the right place, before we continue.

So just pause and do that for me now, please.

So we're going to now have a look at motivations to helping the victims of war.

And we're going to look at some general teachings and then some specific Islamic teachings and some specific Christian teachings.

So let's have a look at the general religious motivations to helping victims of war.

And these could apply both to Christianity and Islam.

So within both Christianity and Islam, God is believed to be just, loving and peaceful.

Those are key qualities of God that Christians and Muslims believe God to have.

And we mentioned earlier in the unit that love, justice and peace can actually be a motivating factor behind a just war for both Christians and Muslims. If you're trying to establish peace and correct an injustice, so that society is fairer and therefore you have more chance of long-lasting peace, then many Christians and Muslims would say that can be a just cause for a conflict.

However, love, justice and peace also need to be established after conflict too, by helping the victims of war.

So when we're thinking about the victims of war, who might be suffering those physical effects or psychological effects or financial effects, the environmental effects or the social and political effects, they need to be shown love.

And we need to help work towards peace and justice by helping overcome the effects that they are suffering from.

So I'd like you to just to pause the video here, please, and summarise the information on your screens, using all the words you can see in pink there, and then join me once you've done that.

Thank you.

So here we can see three specific Islamic teachings and these Islamic teachings would be a clear motivation as to why a Muslim might feel compelled to help the victim of a war.

And the first one says, "to save a life would be as great a virtue as to save all of mankind." And this here is talking about the value of each individual life saying, any one life is equal to all of the other lives that there are.

And that's not to diminish the lives of everyone else, it's actually to try and emphasise just how valuable each individual life is to Allah and therefore should be to people.

Now, if each individual life is really, really, really valuable to Allah and therefore should be to people that makes it really clear, doesn't it? Look that life is valuable, they're suffering as a consequence of war, therefore, you need to help them because their life matters.

So each life being incredibly valuable to Allah.

The next quotation tells us about what Allah loves and it says, "Allah loves the doers of good" Now Muslims need to submit to Allah, don't they? So they need to live their life in a way that follows his teachings and follows his commands.

And here we have a command to do good and clearly it's self evident, isn't it? Helping people in need, in desperate need after conflict is clearly a good thing.

So by helping them doing a good thing, that's going to earn Allah's love.

Allah expects his followers to do good deeds.

And the third quotation you can see here reminds us of Zakah.

Remember Zakah is the charity payment that is obligatory within Islam.

It's one of the five pillars of Islam and also one of the 10 obligatory acts of Shia Islam.

And it's a requirement, isn't it? To pay 2.

5% of your idle wealth above Nisab at the end of each year.

And remember, idle wealth is the money that you have left at the end of each year, after you've taken care of your basic necessities.

And Nisab is your savings allowance within that.

And here it's telling us who can benefit from that charity.

There are actually lots of groups that can benefit from this charity.

And I've just pulled out a few here that would specifically qualify for this charity payment because they are victims of war.

So the poor we've spoken, haven't we? About the financial implications.

So the victims of war might fall under financial hardship and therefore qualify for Zakah.

The needy, it's not just poor people who are needy.

Needy can be people who are suffering physically or emotionally.

And therefore those victims of war could also benefit from Zakah.

For the cause of Allah, those people who might be fighting for the cause of Allah.

So this might be those people that were injured in battle.

And then it talks about the stranded as well, the traveller.

Remember conflict can mean that it's no longer safe for people to stay in their towns or their countries.

So they might become refugees or internally displaced.

And here again, they would qualify for Zakah payments thereby fulfilling the pillar of Islam or the obligatory act of Shia Islam, Zakah.

They would then also be hopefully helping victims of war.

You can see here, the victims of war would fall into these categories of Zakah.

The poor, the needy, the cause of Allah and the stranded, the traveller.

So what I'd like you to do now please, is pause the video and consolidate what we've just spoken about.

So you can see, I'm asking you here to explain how the following teachings would motivate Muslims to help the victims of war.

So I've put those three teachings down, then given you a little sentence starter to help you begin your explanations.

So if you pause the video now please, have a go at that.

And then join me for some feedback on your fantastic theology in just a moment.

Excellent, so hopefully your work looks something like this.

So the first one, "to save a life would be as a great a virtue as to save all of mankind." Now we could say that would motivate a Muslim to help the victims of war because each life is incredibly valuable to Allah.

Therefore, each life needs protecting and preserving.

And in helping victims of war, that's exactly what a Muslim would be doing.

Next quotation, "Allah loves the doers of good." We could say that would motivate the Muslim to help victims of war because Allah expects his followers to do good deeds.

And helping the needy like the victims of war is clearly a good deed to do.

So please just pause your video here and check your first two explanations.

See if there's anything you need to add or improve by comparing it to the one you can see on your screen.

And then join me for the third and final one within Islam.

So the third one, we were talking about Zakah weren't we? And we have the groups here, the poor, the needy, the cause of Allah and for the stranded traveller.

I would say this would motivate a Muslim to help the victims of war, because Allah has instructed Muslims to be charitable to the poor, the needy, those who fight for the cause of Allah and those who were stranded e.

g refugees.

And victims of war would fall into those categories and therefore benefit from Zakah charity.

So again, please pause the video, check that your explanation is as theologically wonderful as the one you can see on your screens, if not just add to it so that it is theologically wonderful.

And then join me and we'll carry on looking at some Christian reasons why people might be motivated to help the victims of war.

So let's have a look at some Christian teachings then.

So the first one you can see is the words of Jesus, "love your neighbour as you love yourself." And this is a clear instruction to give the love of God to all people.

When Jesus clarifies who our neighbour is, it's everyone, all people are children of God, therefore all people according to Christians would be your neighbour.

Which means you need to show the love of God to all people, particularly those in need and the victims of war would fall into that category, don't they? They are really in need of that love.

So Christians will feel motivated to give that love of God to them, by giving them practical help.

So they need to show the love of God to all people.

The next one talks about the value of human life.

And we saw it teach about the value of human life in Islam section as well, didn't we?.

And it says, "so God created human beings, making them to be like himself." And this tells us how valuable each and every human life is to a Christian.

They believe each and every human was created by God.

So each and every human's life is incredibly valuable to God.

And because each and every life is incredible value to God.

That means each life needs protecting and preserving and victims of war again, are really suffering, aren't they? Their life needs protecting, it needs preserving, they need help because their life is valuable to God.

So because their life is really valuable to God, as we can see from this quotation here, it would motivate a Christian to offer that practical help again.

So each life is sacred and therefore incredibly valuable.

And the next one Paul's instructions to the people of Romans, "do everything possible on your part to live in peace with every body." This is all about establishing peace, isn't it? And long-lasting peace.

And let's imagine there's a conflict.

Getting to long-lasting peace after conflict requires reconciliation, doesn't it? And reconciliation is only really going to be effective and long-lasting if the people who are impacted by the war can feel as if they're getting help and support to overcome their problem.

So they're restoring peace and justice in their way in society, and therefore take that forward to establishing peace and justice longterm with the country or state there has been a conflict with.

So establishing long-lasting peace really does require establishing justice.

And we can say, look, it's not just, it's not right, it's not fair, it's not reasonable to leave victims of war without the help they need to get their lives back on track.

So this is basically saying, do everything possible to establish long-lasting peace and long-lasting peace will require fixing the negative effects of war.

So again, I would like you please, to summarise what we've just done using the following teachings, to explain how they would motivate Christians to help the victims of war.

Again, you can see the teachings on your screen and a helpful sentence starter should you wish to use that.

So please have a go at doing that now for me, and then join me for some feedback in a moment.

Excellent work, so let's have a look at those first too then.

The first one was, "love your neighbour as you love yourself." And we could say that that would motivate a Christian to help the victims of war because Christians are called to share the selfless love of God to all people.

And victims of war in particular need of that love.

The second one, "God created human beings, making them to be like himself." We said, didn't we? That that would motivate a Christian to help the victims of war, because each life is sacred and valuable as it's been created by God.

Therefore no one should suffer from the effects of war without help and support.

So please pause the video here, check your work is similar to what you can see on your screen.

Use it as an opportunity to add any corrections or amendments or additions to make your theology as fantastic as it possibly can be.

Pause the video to do that for me now, please.

And now the third one, "do everything possible on your part to live in peace with everyone." We said this would motivate a Christian to help the victims of war because doing everything possible for peace, involves ensuring long-lasting peace can be established after a conflict.

And long-lasting peace will only be secured if justice and equality can be restored.

And helping the victims of war helps to restore that justice and equality, and therefore will help establish that long-lasting peace.

So again, pause the video just to check your work and then join me once you've made any corrections, amendments or improvements that are needed.

So we are now going to look at religious charities that help the victims of war.

And as you can see on your screen, there are two charities we're going to look at.

We're looking at Christian charity, Christian Aid.

We're going to look at an Islamic charity, Islamic Relief.

So starting off with Christian Aid.

Christian Aid are one of the largest Christian organisations helping the victims of war.

Christian Aid aim to bring an end to poverty, whatever the causes or circumstances.

And war and conflict or a cause of poverty for the very many reasons we've looked at in this lesson so far today.

Therefore Christian Aid are keen to work with the victims of war in two ways.

Firstly, helping with the immediate needs they may have, for example, shelter, nutrition, providing practical support to those who may have been made refugees as a consequence of war.

Secondly, helping tackle the longterm causes of conflict by working against inequality and injustice.

Because we know inequality and injustice can lead to conflict.

So Christian Aid put an awful lot of time, effort and resources into seeking to establish basic human rights and fairness in society.

In the hope that wars will no longer be seen as necessary in an effort to establish those basic human rights or justice in society.

So let's just recap those main points.

So one of the largest Christian organisations helping victims of war is Christian Aid.

They aim to end poverty and because they aim to end poverty, and conflict brings poverty about, as you've seen in today's lesson, they're really keen to help the victims of war.

And remember they helped the victims of war in two ways, short-term, the immediate needs they may have because of the consequences they're suffering from in the present, in the now, but also longterm.

Trying to tackle the root causes of conflict by making sure that our basic human rights in society, universally and tackling injustice in society, wherever they may exist.

So let's have a look at Islamic Relief.

Now Islamic Relief is what's known as a nongovernmental organisation.

It was founded in the UK in 1984 by a group of concerned postgraduate students.

Now, if you're a postgraduate student, what that means is you've gone to university and you've got a degree.

And this group of postgraduate students were inspired by their Islamic faith and the teaching of Islam.

Like the one we or the ones we've looked at in today's lesson.

And they seek to help the victims of war by providing the short-term aid that victims of war need and equally like Christian Aid do, they also aim to address the causes of conflict, working alongside communities to help strengthen them in the long run.

And if communities can be made cohesive, just and equal, then the hope is, conflict's not needed anymore to resolve anything because community's already cohesive.

They're already just, there's already a sense of fairness.

So there's no feeling to address or change that.

And Islamic Relief like Christian Aid, allocate their resources, regardless of race, political affiliation, gender, belief and without expecting anything in return.

Let's just remind ourselves of the key things we've just said.

It was founded by a group of Islamic postgraduate students who were inspired by their Islamic faith and the teachings like the ones we've looked at in today's lesson.

The fact that each life is incredibly valuable to Allah.

And the fact that Allah loves the doers of good.

They seeked out the victims of war in two ways, two very similar ways to Christian Aid.

The short-term aid, the immediate needs that victims of war might have and also in the long term by helping establish justice and fairness and a cohesive bond between societies.

So now we've looked at those two religious charities that aim to give practical help to the victims of war.

I'd like you please, to pause your video and have a go at this task.

You can see on your screens, there are seven statements.

Each statement is either true or false.

So I'd like you to read the statement, identify whether it's true or false.

If it's true, please write the word true, followed by the statement.

If it's false, please write the word false, followed by a correction to the statement.

So pause the video now and have a go at that please.

Fab effort, let's see how you got on then.

So the first one was true, so it just needed writing out Christian Aid aims to end poverty.

The next two are false and so needed correcting and hopefully you managed to correct it by saying, the main objective of Christian Aid is to end poverty.

Ending poverty involves helping the victims of war and working to stop conflicts from happening in first place.

The next one is false too.

So Christian Aid are focused on both providing short-term help that victims of war need and helping to establish basic human rights and justice so that conflicts aren't felt to be necessary.

The fourth one was true.

Christian Aid helps in overcoming the causes of war by seeking to establish basic human rights and fairness in society.

Please just pause the video here to check your first four responses and that they match what you can see on your screens.

And then unpause the video and join me for feedback on the final three statements.

So the final three statements, here they are.

First one, or I suppose it's the fifth one, the fifth one was true.

The founders of Islamic Relief were motivated to help because of their faith.

The next one was false and needed correcting.

Islamic Relief helps victims of war in a similar way to Christian Aid, helping with both short-term needs and strengthening communities.

And the last one was false too so it also needed correcting.

Islamic Relief and Christian Aid offer help to people regardless of their race, religion, political affiliation, gender.

So again, pause the video for me and check your fantastic theology looks like that which you can see on your screens for me.

Make any corrections or amendments that are necessary.

Excellent work today.

I'm really impressed your effort, well done.

Please make sure you attempt, there's so many quotes to check.

You can recall all the lovely key information we have covered in today's lesson.

If you wish to share your work with the Oak National Academy, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, using information you can see on the screens there.

Thank you very much for joining me.

I hope you feel like you've learned a lot and enjoyed your lesson.

I very much look forward to seeing you again soon.

Please enjoy the rest of your day.

Goodbye.