We're a group of students turning a single classroom activity into something any school, library, or living room can run. Our goal is for more people to understand what it means to be a refugee and to be aware of the challenges they face.
In 2023, at Kealing Middle School, our 6th graders were given a few minutes to decide what a family would take if they were leaving home and never coming back. Just as important was what they would have to leave behind. Working together and deciding fast, students got a small, hands-on glimpse of what the refugee process asks of people. We think this issue deserves a wider audience.
So we are rebuilding it. Not as one classroom's activity, but as a toolkit that any teacher, librarian, or community group can pick up and run themselves. Alongside it, we are planning public events that put awareness in front of a community that doesn't always get the chance to sit with this.
Original scenarios developed at Kealing Middle School, with materials contributed by Ms. Dita.
We're building this as a facilitator-ready kit, sourced in part from UNHCR's own resources, so the exercise carries the same weight wherever it's run.
Everything a teacher or group leader needs to run the activity cold, timing, discussion prompts, and debrief questions.
Participants have minutes to choose what fits in a single bag before they have to leave. What they keep, and what they can't, is the whole lesson.
A set of scenario cards where participants weigh real decisions displaced families face, with no clean answer to any of them.
Plain-language context on who refugees are and aren't, pulled from UNHCR and other primary sources, built to correct common myths.
Original scenarios developed at Kealing Middle School, with materials contributed by Ms. Dita.
Most refugees resettle in wealthy Western countries.
The large majority are hosted by neighboring low- and middle-income countries, not by wealthy nations far away.
Refugees choose to leave for economic opportunity, like other migrants.
Refugees are fleeing persecution, conflict, or violence, and are protected under international law in a category distinct from economic migration.
Seeking asylum is a quick or automatic process.
Asylum and resettlement processes often take years, with rigorous vetting at every stage.
Once someone is a refugee, that status is permanent.
Most refugees hope to return home, and many do when conditions allow, though displacement often lasts far longer than anyone expects at the start.
Across recent crises, the same handful of items shows up again and again, alongside whatever else a family can't bring itself to leave behind.
Nothing below is booked yet, this is the roadmap we're working from.
A short, single-player decision game. There's no winning move, only different costs.
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Want to run the activity with your class or club?
contact: [add email]Screenings and panels need hands before and during.
contact: [add email]Get word when the toolkit and first events go live.
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