During the Talking Bubbles Summer camp in Sesimbra, Potrugal participants participated in four educational workshops on global challenges.
One of the four topics we took a closer look of was migration. In the workshop we focused on refugees in adapted simulation workshop “Time to Flee” developed by Amnesty International.
The aim of the workshop was to help students understand why people become asylum seekers and the difficulties they face on the road to safety as well as in the destination country.
With the simulation we created an atmosphere of family units with background that were compiled from true stories that asylum seekers and refugees shared with different outlets. At the beginning of the workshop, we shared as little information with participants as possible to create an element of surprise to make their decision making more difficult and realistic. We set the scene of war and abrupt need to leave their homes or families behind. During the course of the workshop family units had to decide who will flee to safety and who will be left behind. On the road to safety they were faced with different difficulties as well as upon arrival.
At the end of the workshop the concept was explained in more detail and the discussion followed on the impressions from the workshop. Where participants discussed how did they find their experience of being an asylum seeker and has it changed their perception of asylum seekers and refugees in their country. We also discussed on causes of migration and different types of migrants in their countries.
Many of the participants shared that they did not understand how hard of a decision it is to choose among family members and decide upon their trip to unknown. Participants also expressed that they did not see migration from this angle before and that the media usually portrays the negative side of migration and very rarely any positive benefits. We do need to keep raising awareness and have open conversation on migration to maximize the positive effects of migration on host as well as sending countries. You can start with our short e-learning on migration