‘PASSAGES’ is an awareness game designed by United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to create awareness, arouse emotions and encourage students to take action on behalf of refugees. Currently the UNCHR are helping over 27 million people who have sought refuge from persecution or armed conflict. St George’s Secondary students participated in a 2 day exercise that transformed students into refugees, the exercise aimed to help them understand the problems refugees encounter whilst escaping for their lives but on a far smaller scale.

The game involved a series of activities over a two day period. Students were first grouped into ‘family roles’ and followed a journey typical of a real refugee family, from separation and flight from their homeland; the train of events that brings them to refugee camps and beyond; thinking about possible solutions to refugee problems, (particularly with regards to integration the country of asylum and repatriation to the country of origin). The outcome of this simulation is to encourage students to adopt a more welcoming attitude towards refugees in their own countries and through reflection become motivated to undertake their own positive actions on behalf of refugees.

Read the beautifully written poems by students inspired by this exercise:

Written by Albin, Nina, James, Simon, Lucy, Ben, Evan and Lorenzo

Written by Lee, Marina, Ayan, Aryaa, Sophie, Hannah