Icelandic Children Greet Refugee Classmate With Arabic Song

To greet a new classmate from Syria, a group of Icelandic children learned how to sing in Arabic. The performance was reportedly well received. A video of the song’s performance can be seen below.

Vísir reports that at the beginning of the week, some of the children of the newly-arrived refugees from Syria began attending the Urðarhóll preschool in Kópavogur. To welcome their new classmate, many of the other children learned how to sing an Arabic song.

“The children received the idea warmly and found it exciting,” Birte Harksen, the teacher who initiated the project, told reporters. “It was a wonderful moment when they sang this for him. The look on his face was indescribable. We considered this an important preparation for us, both school workers and the children.”

Birte had learned the song from a former co-worker in 2008, and translated it into Icelandic for the children. While the kids at Urðarhóll have been singing the song in Icelandic since then, this marks the first time they sang it in Arabic.

While the video provides text in Icelandic and Arabic, the English translation is as follows:

We are drops, we are drops
In one ocean, in one ocean
We are leaves, we are leaves
On the same tree, on the same tree

Make connections, make connections
Unite all the world
Let us aim for this together, you and I

All nations, all nations
The same people, the same people
Humanity, humanity
Is one entirety, is one entirety

Make connections, make connections
Unite all the world
Let us aim for this together, you and I