How to raise young people’s awareness of migration issues? Quite simply by offering them to become candidates for exile themselves, for the time of a escape room. This is the solution imagined by a professor of history and geography in Geneva. Everything takes place in the premises of the Emilie-Gourd high school. In rooms completely modified for the needs of the experiment. The students begin the session in a Bedouin tent, as if they were in Libya. Starting point of the journey : they are on a mission to reach Europe.
Very quickly, fake smugglers get involved and steal the players’ money, before leading them to a dismal prison in the school basement. But that, the four students/migrants do not know, since they have been put a hood over their heads. It will take a few minutes for the small group to come to their senses. And solve the first puzzles to get out of this jail which tries to imitate the real Libyan clandestine prisons in which thousands of migrants are piled up in sordid conditions.
Fortunately, players can count on the help of NGOs who will guide them during their journey. Nothing is left to chance. Not even the customs officers, who await the participants as soon as they believe they have finally arrived in their new host country: “Did you all go through Italy? launches a fake customs officer, before handcuffing the players who respond favorably to him. The players are indeed arrested under the Dublin agreements which stipulate that it is the country of entry into Europe which is responsible for the asylum procedure.
Said like this, this escape room seems a little weird, even downright out of place. But everything has been done to avoid blurring the lines between entertainment and awareness.
Several organizations such as SOS Méditerranée but also the UNHCR, the High Commissioner for Refugees, which has its headquarters in Geneva, came to test the game. They offered their expertise to make the experience more realistic. Because the idea is to teach the students something. In any case more than if they had stayed in class explains, David Pillonel, the history teacher at the origin of theescape room :
There is enormous educational potential in an “escape game”. Between the sets, the fake blood, the smell… Immersion allows learning through emotion and feeling. This makes it easier to reach students.
David Pillonel, teacherfranceinfo
As for the players, we actually feel that the game has marked them. “I found it very interestingabounds Andrina. We find ourselves in a real stressful situation. Of course, it’s nothing compared to what people really go through, but it allows us to understand all the stages of their journey.”.
For two years, about 500 students have already had the experience. It’s unclear how many will want to apply to organizations like UNHCR after this. But one of the young people who participated in the design of the game has already found work in a escape room from Geneva.