Remember the World Refugee Day!
Remember the World Refugee Day!
On the World Refugee Day, the 20th of June 2019, observing the increasingly huge numbers of people’s displacement all around the world in the last couple of years, Jugend- & Kulturprojekt e.V. has been reflecting on all the work that we have done so far involving Refugees in activities that encourage cultural exchange, active participation and dialogue inviting the local community of Dresden to get to know the new arrivals and interact with them.
Last year, in May 2018, we were working on the European project “You are Welcome, a European project which aimed to connect new arrivals and native citizens through art, intercultural and educational activities. One of the most innovative activities we developed that managed to bring together native citizens, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, was the adventure room “Utopia”. The adventure room has the same concept as the so-called escape rooms; it has a story where the participants have to solve clues and riddles in order to be able to manage get out of the room within 60 minutes.
The story
Planet Earth has been destroyed. They (the participants) are the only ones who have survived and are in a spaceship. Their spaceship has been heavily damaged and can’t be repaired. It runs on reserve life support systems. The only way to survive, is to land as soon as possible on another planet; otherwise they would die. The spaceship is losing fuel at the fast pace and in the next 1 hour they have enough fuel to reach 1 of the 3 nearby planets. They could only land on one.
The adventure room
Through riddles and clues that the participants should solve, they collect information about each planet. In the end, they put together all the information they gather about the 3 planets and have to choose altogether their destiny…Each planet has certain features…good ones and bad ones.
The difference between the commercial escape rooms and the adventure room which we created is that the latter one focuses mainly on the process, how refugees and native citizens that haven’t met before can work together, communicate in different languages, solve together the riddles and puzzles and also take common decisions.
The adventure room has been played by many different multicultural groups. It is quite interesting to see how people from different backgrounds who don’t know each other, can communicate and work together in teams. It is also fascinating to observe the role of each participant; the leader, the follower, the connector/mediator or the doer. The last part of the game, where the participants have to take a unanimous decision, is the part where the players discuss and debate. There, the decision which is taken is the one which is voted by the majority of the participants.
The adventure room reflects real life as in both cases, people are forced to leave their country/planet in order to survive; the newcomers who arrive in the host country/new planet come from many different countries and have to adapt to a new environment and the newcomers who arrive in the host country, take a life decision that is going to change their destiny. No one would leave their home if they were not forced to do so.
The game we created has turned into a project under the title “MOB-X” and we are very glad to be running it and involving so many people who live in Saxony! For more information on MOB-X, click here.