Refugee Run: Q & A
Why set up a Refugee Run?
We live in a world where the plight of refugees is too often reduced to a set of dry statistics or data on a graph or pie chart. Our longing was to bring alive, even under limited conditions, the dilemma faced by 32.9 million people who are refugees and IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons).
How should that need be communicated? One can use speeches, Powerpoint presentations, academic papers, and the like. The reason we include simulation activity is that people tell us they connect far better with the needs of displaced persons through it. As one CEO said, after doing the Refugee Run at Davos, “It’s the difference between hearing and being.”
What are its goals?
Three “E”s best capture the desired outcomes:
· Education: We hope to give greater knowledge of the subject.
· Empathy: We want participants to engage, to care about refugees.
· Empowerment: We explore ways, during our debrief, for participants to respond. Businesses can do a lot, using their core competencies, to engage at a strategic level to attain a sustainable outcome. Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development have a critical role in this. Students can engage differently. Our debriefing times are geared to the nature of the group participating.
Is it realistic? Is it respectful?
It is always a challenge to portray a situation of difficulty in a sensitive way. Any simulation can only go so far, of course: somewhat like a live snap shot.
We therefore co-developed this experience with our refugee colleagues, consulting them on all parts of it: the story line and its trueness to life, the props and set that best reflect reality and the points they consider of critical importance for participants to take away.
Raphael Mwandu, from DR Congo, is one example. He not only advises on the set, but is an artist who helps construct it. He has also helped train the cast, serves as one of the actors and assists with the debrief. “The things you see in this experience are the same as those that happen in the camps,” he told the Davos participants. “I love doing this work because I want to let others know what is going on in our world so that people can meet together and find solutions.”
The input of our refugee colleagues is further supported by refugees we know through our broader work, shipments we send to refugee locations, and visits we make to camps or other places of refuge.
How did this start?
Three years ago, during a Crossroads anniversary, we felt uncomfortable holding a celebration in a hotel as we wanted to hold an event which was closer to our hearts. At the time, we invited Hong Kong CEOs and community leaders to spend 24 hours living in a situation of poverty. At the close of that event, we had no intention of continuing, but the CEOs took us aside and said, “Don’t stop doing this. It has impacted us far more than anything similar we have done in our corporate lives.”
In the three years since that first simulation, we have continued to offer many more. It seems that corporate participants, as well as diplomats, service groups, students, families and others, have had enough talking heads in front of microphones and podiums. They are finding, in simulation activity, a learning tool which involves them at a deeper level.
How intense is the simulation?
It is a very powerful experience. For that reason, we have a minimum recommended age of 15 (unless with parental supervision) and we take time to warn those considering the experience that they will be placed in a highly intense situation. We also assure them that no actual harm will come to them.
In addition, we tell them that if at any point during the experience, participants feel they cannot manage, we give them a way to leave immediately and have staff ready to speak with them, as needed. Since we began offering this simulation, we have almost never found people do so, but the offer is always there.
Why a themed environment?
People have asked whether simulations and role play of this kind can be likened to a theme park? Well, if you use the term ‘theme park’ synonymously with ‘amusement park,’ then no. Absolutely not.
The experience is “themed,” though, in the same way that an interactive learning opportunity in a history or ‘living’ museum may be themed for experiential learning. The more immersive an environment, the more powerful we have found it in enabling participants to encounter the reality lived by another. Indeed, its ‘themed’ nature is, perhaps, closer in style to centres for humanitarian workers, globally, which offer training before those personnel enter a situation under actual crisis.
What is the response?
When we asked participants the impressions they gained of life for a refugee, they told us the following.
“You lose control of your life.”
“No rights.”
“I felt dehumanised.”
“I totally shut down.”
“You live in fear.”
“You never know what happens next.”
“There was no hope.”
“I felt like I wanted to die.”
“I had no personal space.”
“No time for grieving.”
“No justice.”
“Hard to express feelings so deep.”
“Makes my normal life seem ostentatious.”
“Very realistic.”
“There is no exaggeration. Camp life really is like this.”
“Really impressive.”
“Very powerful.”
“This should be compulsory for everyone at WEF.”
“We need reminders like these because we human beings too easily forget.”
“There’s no better way to communicate than simulation…”
What is the outcome?
We have held this “Run,” weekly, in Hong Kong, over the past 18-24 months and watched people become motivated in ways that they never have before.
Many of the Hong Kong corporate leaders who have participated say it is more powerful than other forms of presentation and, as a result, have remained involved with global issues, long after their simulation experience. Simulation experience has also birthed NGOs, projects and further engagement in the community, both adult and student.
Is it for money?
We use simulation, primarily, for consciousness raising: an advocacy tool. Corporate participants, or others in the community, may wish to give money but our debrief, more typically, focuses on core competencies of the company involved, and ways in which they may be directed towards engagement that is sustainable and strategic.
Does it suit everybody?
Not everybody supports simulation or role play as an educational tool. Different people learn in different ways and some prefer a straight cerebral process.
That said, however, many participants tell us that, when they undertake this experience, they find it effective in ways they did not expect. Often, they say they come to it with a measure of skepticism, but leave with a very different perspective, deeply moved.
We live in a world where the plight of refugees is too often reduced to a set of dry statistics or data on a graph or pie chart. Our longing was to bring alive, even under limited conditions, the dilemma faced by 32.9 million people who are refugees and IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons).
How should that need be communicated? One can use speeches, Powerpoint presentations, academic papers, and the like. The reason we include simulation activity is that people tell us they connect far better with the needs of displaced persons through it. As one CEO said, after doing the Refugee Run at Davos, “It’s the difference between hearing and being.”
What are its goals?
Three “E”s best capture the desired outcomes:
· Education: We hope to give greater knowledge of the subject.
· Empathy: We want participants to engage, to care about refugees.
· Empowerment: We explore ways, during our debrief, for participants to respond. Businesses can do a lot, using their core competencies, to engage at a strategic level to attain a sustainable outcome. Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development have a critical role in this. Students can engage differently. Our debriefing times are geared to the nature of the group participating.
Is it realistic? Is it respectful?
It is always a challenge to portray a situation of difficulty in a sensitive way. Any simulation can only go so far, of course: somewhat like a live snap shot.
We therefore co-developed this experience with our refugee colleagues, consulting them on all parts of it: the story line and its trueness to life, the props and set that best reflect reality and the points they consider of critical importance for participants to take away.
Raphael Mwandu, from DR Congo, is one example. He not only advises on the set, but is an artist who helps construct it. He has also helped train the cast, serves as one of the actors and assists with the debrief. “The things you see in this experience are the same as those that happen in the camps,” he told the Davos participants. “I love doing this work because I want to let others know what is going on in our world so that people can meet together and find solutions.”
The input of our refugee colleagues is further supported by refugees we know through our broader work, shipments we send to refugee locations, and visits we make to camps or other places of refuge.
How did this start?
Three years ago, during a Crossroads anniversary, we felt uncomfortable holding a celebration in a hotel as we wanted to hold an event which was closer to our hearts. At the time, we invited Hong Kong CEOs and community leaders to spend 24 hours living in a situation of poverty. At the close of that event, we had no intention of continuing, but the CEOs took us aside and said, “Don’t stop doing this. It has impacted us far more than anything similar we have done in our corporate lives.”
In the three years since that first simulation, we have continued to offer many more. It seems that corporate participants, as well as diplomats, service groups, students, families and others, have had enough talking heads in front of microphones and podiums. They are finding, in simulation activity, a learning tool which involves them at a deeper level.
How intense is the simulation?
It is a very powerful experience. For that reason, we have a minimum recommended age of 15 (unless with parental supervision) and we take time to warn those considering the experience that they will be placed in a highly intense situation. We also assure them that no actual harm will come to them.
In addition, we tell them that if at any point during the experience, participants feel they cannot manage, we give them a way to leave immediately and have staff ready to speak with them, as needed. Since we began offering this simulation, we have almost never found people do so, but the offer is always there.
Why a themed environment?
People have asked whether simulations and role play of this kind can be likened to a theme park? Well, if you use the term ‘theme park’ synonymously with ‘amusement park,’ then no. Absolutely not.
The experience is “themed,” though, in the same way that an interactive learning opportunity in a history or ‘living’ museum may be themed for experiential learning. The more immersive an environment, the more powerful we have found it in enabling participants to encounter the reality lived by another. Indeed, its ‘themed’ nature is, perhaps, closer in style to centres for humanitarian workers, globally, which offer training before those personnel enter a situation under actual crisis.
What is the response?
When we asked participants the impressions they gained of life for a refugee, they told us the following.
“You lose control of your life.”
“No rights.”
“I felt dehumanised.”
“I totally shut down.”
“You live in fear.”
“You never know what happens next.”
“There was no hope.”
“I felt like I wanted to die.”
“I had no personal space.”
“No time for grieving.”
“No justice.”
“Hard to express feelings so deep.”
“Makes my normal life seem ostentatious.”
“Very realistic.”
“There is no exaggeration. Camp life really is like this.”
“Really impressive.”
“Very powerful.”
“This should be compulsory for everyone at WEF.”
“We need reminders like these because we human beings too easily forget.”
“There’s no better way to communicate than simulation…”
What is the outcome?
We have held this “Run,” weekly, in Hong Kong, over the past 18-24 months and watched people become motivated in ways that they never have before.
Many of the Hong Kong corporate leaders who have participated say it is more powerful than other forms of presentation and, as a result, have remained involved with global issues, long after their simulation experience. Simulation experience has also birthed NGOs, projects and further engagement in the community, both adult and student.
Is it for money?
We use simulation, primarily, for consciousness raising: an advocacy tool. Corporate participants, or others in the community, may wish to give money but our debrief, more typically, focuses on core competencies of the company involved, and ways in which they may be directed towards engagement that is sustainable and strategic.
Does it suit everybody?
Not everybody supports simulation or role play as an educational tool. Different people learn in different ways and some prefer a straight cerebral process.
That said, however, many participants tell us that, when they undertake this experience, they find it effective in ways they did not expect. Often, they say they come to it with a measure of skepticism, but leave with a very different perspective, deeply moved.
