Aims:
This activity encourages the participants to co-operate, negotiate and share. It helps them to understand refugees and to better empathise with their situation.
Audience:
Key stage 2 or 3 students. 20 to 60 students, in a classroom or hall. The activities can be completed while sitting in groups around desks. For more interactivity, if you have space, the groups can move around from “station” to “station”.
Time required:
60 to 90 minutes. (The introduction takes 10 minutes, the main activity takes 40 minutes although it can be shortened to 30, the debrief takes 25 minutes but can be shortened if necessary or lengthened if possible.)
Resources needed:
Belongings cards (or pieces of card on which to write/draw belongings), lists of belongings, envelopes or plastic wallets (one per participant), stickers (one per participant), post-it notes, picture map (optional), felt tip pens.
Equipment needed:
Laptop, projector, powerpoint presentation.
Overview:
The participants are grouped into refugee families. Each group simulates the journey of a family escaping the dangers of war.
Stations are created around the room to represent the hazardous journey. Alternatively, a picture map could be used to chart the progress of the journey.
The young people are led through the stages of the story which will involve them making choices. These choices represent some of the real-life dilemmas which many refugees face.
Afterwards, the participants reflect on what they have done, and think about what can be done to help the situation.
Preparation
Beforehand, discuss with the teacher the fact that the activity will ask young people to think about home, family and leaving home. There may be young people who are refugees in the group; ask for guidance from the teacher about the sensitivities of this workshop. The teacher may wish to prepare certain students beforehand.
Ask the teacher to arrange the group into groups of six.
The room: if you have the space for young people to move around, prepare different ‘stations’ (one for each group) so that they can move on each part of their journey. There is no starting station, each group can move around, and the starting point is not relevant to the activity.
If possible, for the truck journey, chairs could be grouped very close together, so things are squashed and uncomfortable. Post-it notes can mark the four corners of the truck.
Activity can be completed without the movement, with groups sitting together at desks. If this is the case, then the imagination of the young people needs to be used.
Belongings cards for randomly distributing around the room need advance preparation. They will be spread around the room to allow the young people to search for their ‘belongings’ when the main activity begins.
Cards are divided into different categories:
BLUE – Identity
GREEN – Practical items
YELLOW – Emotional items
These are available in the colours listed but could be printed onto coloured paper instead.
If completing activity without movement, a colour coded sheet is available to use. Young people should then write or draw their chosen belongings onto pieces of card to be carried through the activity.
Each participant should have the following:
A photocopy of the list of belongings from which they choose what to bring on their journey.
A plastic wallet or envelope representing their bag to carry their cards.
A sticker for their name and their role (parent, grandparent, child etc).
Optional: a photocopy of the picture map and a felt tip or stickers to record the progress of their journey.
General Guidelines
Each of the stations has a ‘script’ to follow. When delivering the messages, give a real sense of urgency and danger to what is being said. Each situation the group find themselves in demands a quick, but not easy decision.
Ensure that the groups are working together, each member can participate and that when decisions are made, they have reasons to back them up.
Pace is key: try as much as possible to stick to the timings given.
Throughout the activity, reminders will need to be given from the instructions, for example six items only.
Throughout the activity, reminders will be needed to stay in character.
Timing countdowns will be useful too and create a sense of urgency when time is running low. The PowerPoint has the timings built in, but verbal reminders will work well too.
A PowerPoint presentation has been produced to lead through the workshop. Familiarise yourself with the information from the slides prior to the workshop so that it flows, and you can maintain the required pace. The workshop can be used without PowerPoint if necessary.
Workshop:
Depending on time, you may want to give some context by using the Refugee statistics activity. However, it can be most effective and empathetic to go straightinto the activityand bring out the context afterwards during the debrief.
Activity / Resource / TimeIntroduction.
In groups of six, the young people can discuss and decide which family members they will play (for example parents, grandparents, children) and they can choose a family name.
Each person needs to stay in character (stickers/badges provided).
If a large room is being used, then each group sits in a large group together whilst the Station One is explained.
If a smaller room is being used where there won’t be any movement, then each group sits in their own place.
Ask the young people to imagine their home. Can they come up with a memory of what makes their home special? For example, underneath the wallpaper in the bedroom, there are lines marking everyone’s height which the family does whenever they redecorate. The piano has the number of white and black keys scraped on to it by the eldest child from when they were learning to count. The wall is scraped from when father tried to fit a table in a room where the door was too small. There’s a footprint in the concrete just outside the house from when granny hadn’t realised grandad had put down fresh concrete to fill a pothole, and she stepped in it when coming back from the shop…
Each group then shares one memory of their house. The person playing the child under six should retell that story, in the style of a young child, who has heard this story being handed down. / Stickers with roles. / 10 mins
Station One: (slides 2-18)
If moving around the room, groups should begin together in one area of the room and end the time on this station at a designated table/area to begin their journey.
You are about to go on a journey into the unknown. You don’t know if you will ever be able to return to your home. War has broken out in your country. Bombs are being dropped and you can hear gunfire every day but today it seems closer and you know that fighting must be very close by. You must escape quickly. Your family have been told that some trucks will be arriving soon that could take you, your family and neighbours to the coast, where you hope you can find a boat to take you to safety. There is no time to waste. You must be quick.
The first thing each of you must do is pack a bag for your journey.
In your bag you may carry no more than six items.
Think carefully about what you really need to take. Discuss this with the rest of your family. Don’t forget: your items might be heavy to carry or difficult to look after. Young children or elderly people will not be able to carry certain objects. Think about the roles you are in – who would know where to find the family passports, for example?
Look at the belongings list and choose your items.
You now need to look around your house and find them!
(If not moving around, items can still be chosen from the list but not searched for.)
(slide 6) You have ten minutes to find your cards, the six things that you want to take.
(If not “searching the house”: You have ten minutes to draw each of your six items on the cards.)
After 10 minutes:Your time is up! / Slides 2-18
Belongings list
Belongings cards
Envelopes or plastic wallets, one per person / 10 mins
If time is limited, stations 2 and 3 could be combined into one. The highlighted section from station 2 could be omitted and the 2 minute time limit left for the end of station 3. It is important, however, to continue to use the story (without the lost bag) from station 2 to allow the scene to be set.
Station Two: (slides 19-35)
The truck has arrived. The driver wants to get away quickly and can’t wait. You can’t take anything else. Bring your bag with you and climb on the old wooden truck. You are on your way. Take a last look at your home. You are very unhappy because you must leave your home behind but there is nothing that you can do.
You start to cry as you think about all the happy times that you spent with there and wonder what will happen to it now and whether you will ever return.
(If possible, use benches/chairs that are grouped together to be uncomfortable or mark out a small area with post-it notes that the family need to sit within for the journey.)
The seats in the truck are hard and narrow and, whichever way you sit, you cannot get comfortable. The driver is in a hurry to get you to safety, gunfire continues, and bombs can still be heard in the distance. He speeds along the road and almost loses control as the truck screeches around the corner.
Oh no! One of your parents is thrown from their seat and their bag flies out of the back of the truck. Disaster!
(If there are two people facilitating, try to get round as quickly as possible and remove one bag from one parent in each family.)
You try shouting over and over again, but the driver cannot hear you hear you calling, so the bag is left far behind. This parent has lost everything.
Help them make up for this loss by giving them something from your bag.
They can take one thing from each person in the family. You have two minutes to do this. What have you been left with?
(Allow two minutes)
Your time is up! / Slides 19-35
Post it notes / 4 mins
Station Three: (slides 36-46)
The truck must climb up a steep mountain. It gets slower and slower and a strange choking noise comes from the engine. You wonder if this truck will ever get you to the coast.
You hear a mighty bang and the truck grinds to a halt.
Something is very wrong with the truck’s engine and it cannot be fixed. You must continue the journey on foot, but you find that your bag is too heavy to carry. Make it lighter by taking out the heaviest item. You have two minutes to decide what this is and to leave it behind.
What have you been left with?
(Allow two minutes)
Your time is up! / Slides 36-46 / 4 mins
Station Four: (slides 47-56)
You struggle on, but you find it harder and harder to keep going. It is a hot day and the sun is beating down. There has been no rain for more than a year, so the roads are hard, full of holes and difficult to walk on. You are all getting tired and wanting to stop. Your belongings seem even heavier now, but you know you must keep going, you aren’t safe.
Suddenly, disaster! The youngest member of your family falls and hurts their leg. They cannot go on without help.
Two of you will have to carry them (choose who will help).
These three people can no longer carry their bags. The rest of the family will have to help carry their belongings but remember that no one may carry more than six items, so some things will have to be left behind.
Talk about this. You have three minutes to sort this out. What have you been left with now?
(Allow three minutes)
Your time is up! / Slides 47-56 / 4 mins
IF TIME IS LIMITED, STATIONS 5 AND 6 COULD BE COMBINED INTO ONE.
Alternative script:
Finally! You are overjoyed to see some fishing boats waiting in the bay. But unfortunately, the boats are very small, and none can take more than four people and the fisherman will not let you get on his boat without payment. You have no money, but he agrees to let you on board in exchange for the most valuable thing in your bag. The boat is leaving in two minutes and you must decide what you will give him, and your family must split up into groups of four.
Talk with the others in your family and decide what can be shared and what must be left behind
(Allow two minutes)
Your time is up!
Station five: (slides 57-70)
Finally! You are overjoyed to see some fishing boats waiting in the bay. But unfortunately, the boats are very small, and none can take more than four people.
Your family must split up into groups of four.
This is very hard to do, and you become very upset. You want to stay together and are frightened of what might happen if you separate but you have no choice.
You have two minutes to sort out your groups – who will you go with?
(Allow two minutes)
(Have extra chairs/benches set up to allow for ‘families’ to split up – will be quite chaotic, but realistic!Alternatively, mark out with post it notes a small area that the 4 members need to sit in, representing the boat.)
Your time is up!
It is possible that some groups may be small enough not to have to be split up. How do these groups feel, watching other ‘families’ being separated? / Slides 57-70
Post it notes / 4 mins
Station six: (slide 71-78)
The fisherman will not let you get on his boat without payment. You have no money, but he agrees to let you on board in exchange for the most valuable thing in your bag. The boat is leaving in two minutes and you must decide what you will give him.
The boat is very small, and the fisherman now says that you have too much luggage.
No one may carry more than two things.
Talk with the others in your family and decide what can be shared and what must be left behind.
You have four minutes. What have you got left?
(Allow four minutes)
Your time is up! / Slides 71-78 / 8 mins
Station seven: (slides 79-83)
The boat sets sail. The sea is rough and stormy. The boat starts to leak and sea water floods in.
You manage to save your bag but it is soaking wet and anything which could be affected by water is ruined.
You have two minutes to check the belongings in your bag and throw away anything that is spoilt.
(Allow two minutes)
Your time is up! / Slides 79-83 / 4 mins
Station eight: (slides 84-90)
At last you can see land. It has been a terrible journey! You are anxious to find out what has happened to the others in your family and hope they have arrived safely too.
What will happen now?
You don’t know but you hope for peace and safety. / Slides 84-90 / 2 mins
(50 mins so far)
Debrief and follow-up after the activity (at least 25 minutes overall)
This section, as much as possible, should not be compromised. It provides the opportunity to think about what has been experienced and to reflect on the situation that refugees find themselves in.
(2-3 minutes) (slide 91)
After the active nature of the exercise and the heated conversations that will have taken place, a period of quiet reflection will allow for things to be put into context. Have a few minutes of peace, thinking about how they feel, before any de-brief takes place.
You might want to show the UNHCR video, “What they took with them”, at this point, or perhaps after the debrief. It is on slide 92. You can download the film at is 5.5 minutes long. / Slides 91-92
Copy of the UNHCR film, “What they took with them” / 3 mins
10 mins if you show the film
Debrief from main activity (5 minutes)
There are several questions that could be used to scaffold the feedback from groups:
- Did you bring the right things?
- Did you think about food and water?
- How did you feel when you had to give up your belongings?
- What was the most difficult part of the journey?
- How did you feel about what was happening to you?
- How did you feel when your family had to separate?
- How did you feel at the end of the journey?
- How might it feel to be a real refugee?