"In the shoes of refugees" - Creating opportunities for young Europeans to learn about forced migration through online simulation of refugee journeys and routes.

This project was developed from a background that Europe needed amicable ways to dynamically work with the growing number of migrants into its boundaries. It was at the backdrop of the total number of migrants arriving in Europe peaking in October 2015 when approximately 222,500 refugees and migrants arrived in one month (UNHCR), of which most by far (211,700) landed in Greece, coming from Turkey. At that time our partnership developed the board game – The Journey Istanbul, which became a European Union award winner in 2015 for its ways of encouraging inter-cultural dialogue and understanding around migration. Years on, the flow of migration from the Middle Eastern and North African countries continued and was exacerbated by the early 2020s shocks of the Covid19. Our answer was to share several practices on how we could do this by innovating the earlier developed award-winning board game into a more agile, easy-to-multiply, close-to-realistic presentation of refugee journeys into an Augmented reality version (AR), along with other usable components. The project aimed to contribute to a more culturally aware, diverse, and empathetic Europe towards migration.

The project sought to promote European values and intercultural dialogue to build common histories in the face of immigration into the European Union and new forms of interaction over the past and many years to come. Through these, we set out to contribute to a more culturally aware, diverse, and empathetic Europe towards migration at a time when the region was struggling with how to receive migrants. The project’s fundamental value was and remains its aim to innovatively do this through digitally dynamic products, which would along the way equally enhance digital skills, new technologies learning and utilization, critical thinking about social issues, and media literacy. We also built a virtual cultural heritage museum to provide an available repository of cultural knowledge. The goal remains to widen people's knowledge and knowledge sources through developing a repository of usable, expandable, easily multipliable, socially, and technologically innovative, publicly available products. The project concretely aimed at giving possibilities to European partners to develop innovative ideas - here in the form of an AR migration game and related supportive components available here - https://www.thejourney.today

Briefly summarized, the project set out to produce the following products/outputs that supported the delivery of the objectives and aspirations above: Result/output 1 - "The Journey ISTANBUL game" - AR-version delivered through an accompanying App was created - https://www.thejourney.today/theproject/games/ Result/output 2 - Virtual Cultural Heritage Museum (VCHM) on stories of refugee migration and life in Europe was developed - https://www.thejourney.today/theproject/museum/ Result/output 3 - Live Action Role Playing (LARP) game for immersion into migration journeys and cultural experiences was developed - https://www.thejourney.today/theproject/larp/ Result/output 4 - Stories of surviving refugees - in a comic book – The Fisherman’s Eye – were compiled through the telling of the fisherman that saved scores of refugees from drowning - https://www.thejourney.today/theproject/comic-book/ To achieve these, the project delivered the following activities: We delivered four transnational/inter partner project meetings that facilitated continuous collaboration, dialogue, and implementation of the project. These included: - Inter-partner Project Management Meeting (IPM) 1 in Turkey - Inter-partner Project Management Meeting (IPM) 2 in Greece - Inter-partner Project Management Meeting (IPM) 3 in Sweden, and - Inter-partner Project Management Meeting (IPM) 4, which was meant to be held in Denmark but changed to a virtual meeting as all the results had been delivered by now. To bring the products/outputs out to European local communities, we implemented several multiplier events across the four collaborating countries as follows: - E1 Community mobilization towards the adoption of "The Journey" - AR game, VCHM, Comic Book, and real-time role-play of the LARP – Denmark - E2 Community mobilization towards the adoption of "The Journey" - AR game, VCHM, Comic Book, and real-time role-play of the LARP – Sweden - E3 Community mobilization towards the adoption of "The Journey" - AR game, VCHM, Comic Book, and real-time role-play of the LARP – Turkey - E4 Community mobilization towards the adoption of "The Journey" - AR game, VCHM, Comic Book, and real-time role-play of the LARP – Greece

Throughout the 24 months of project implementation, we are proud to present four concrete outputs that contribute to the delivery of the project’s intended objectives. These are as follows: Output 1: The Journey – AR version Developed: For this output, we set out to transform the earlier created board game “The Journey: Istanbul” into or to the level of Augmented Reality (AR). This entailed innovating and reinventing several aspects of the board game that were possible to get into AR format to give this award-winning game extendibility and conformity to the realities of young and future board game players – the desired mix of mobile technologies. We believe we have delivered this – as The Journey AR Companion App – can now be freely downloaded from either Apple or Android stores and is fully responsive to the board game. With this app on a mobile gadget along with a board game that has already been introduced, publicized, and played in over 20 countries by thousands of youngsters, we believe the AR version of the board game will multiply this many folds while offering a realistic, effective, and dynamic gaming experience more realistic and effective. Download the APP here: or on the Apple or Android store Output 2: Virtual Culture Museum of Heritage: We set out to develop an open-access web- and app-based platform hosting - a Virtual Cultural Heritage Museum (VCHM), serving as an online digital platform to make all the project results, we developed widely available and accessible to the public. We also in this process would compile other videos of various migrant stories – including about the lives of refugees and the values that these people have brought with them to Europe. Creating and developing the VCHM would allow us to raise awareness about migration and common cultural heritage and reach an even larger number of people all around the world, as the platform is freely available worldwide – and with modern automated translations, the content of the museum is accessible in all web support languages. And as the project comes to its end, we can report that we have delivered this. Along the VCHM development, we had a few contemplations around the relevance of such an archive. As already anticipated, there are tons of websites and archives of this nature and so we had to work with the dilemma of not simply developing another resigned platform. There needed to be an embedded and connected purpose of the VCHM with the specific audiences that we interacted with during the project implementation, and how such an archive would serve their needs – be it knowledge creation, pedagogical support materials, backup stories for the board game and LARP, and or a central and simplified repository of materials that could be used in a classroom supportive of an already ongoing wave of sensitization. So, as we developed the VCHM we zeroed in on its relevance to the above. Turning it into a single stop place for all the materials that the project has developed, where you find and can access the game, LARP and AR App materials, other connected games and visualizations, and graphics and maps to support the above. But probably the most important part/product of the VCHM and our project are the specific stories of refugees related to the game, LARP and narratives around what the life of a refugee looks like. Who are they, how is their every day, how do you relate with them, and how can you come close to immersing yourself in their lives? On the VCHM we have delivered both curated PORTRAITS of refugees, as well as other stories told by the refugees themselves to support this close to full immersion. We will also maintain the VCHM as a part of the project partnership’s joint interest in supporting quicker migrant inclusion in European societies. Our partner Impact Unified will lead on the longer-term maintenance, curation, and population of this. Here below is a snip of portraits from the VCHM found here. Output 3: Live Action Role Play – LARP – an immersion into migrant journeys: We set out to create a Live Action Role Playing (LARP) game titled ‘What Now?’ that would give audiences an immersive experience into the lives and choices that refugees have to make during their journeys. The LARP we have developed is a combination of the following: - A map – starting from Greece and with journeys across different European countries. - Item cards – endow you with useful assets to survive on your way as you traverse Europe. - Passports – that you of course need to cross borders. And depending on which passport you have – it either becomes easier or more difficult to cross borders. - Other actors including NGOs, Border Controls and Traffickers give a wide dynamic of relations and engagements. You also find the manual and instructions for the LARP on the project page here. Based on locations in Greece we have made an experience that facilitates audiences and participants feel like "walking in the shoes of a refugee" or trying to find a way out of there. Through the LARP simulation, each participant takes on the character of a refugee who has successfully navigated a long and treacherous path and finally arrived in Greece, where they are now staying in a relatively safe but improvised camp. Each participant has a decision to make. Should they continue north from Greece on foot towards Germany and apply for asylum as they get there? Or would they choose another route or make a whole other choice altogether? Through the LARP we have tried to make this otherwise heavy refugee topic playful – but with such effect that we have seen young people during our multipliers embody the dynamic of making choices and feeling empathetic for refugees. The LARP provides a useful tool for helping people come close to understanding the topic of migration and refugee lives we believe. Output 4: Comic Book – The Fisherman’s Eye – stories of Kostas Pinteris: Finally, we set out to develop and publish a comic book with the stories about surviving refugees told by the fisherman Kostas Pinteris, a fisherman on the Greek island of Lesbos, who took it upon himself with a few of his fisher friends to start rescuing refugees from drowning for many years and especially during the peak of the refugee wave into Europe. Kostas was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 and is among the closest eyewitnesses to what Syrian refugees have suffered in their efforts to reach Greece. He has collected a large volume of memories and stories about refugees and the re-telling of his stories about refugees in Greek amphitheaters has for us in the partnership made a huge impact on understanding what humanity means when the entire continent looked away. As we talked with Kostas during our trip to Skala Sikamineas for TPM3 in Greece, we also realized how heavy the topic we were asking him to narrate was. His illustrious explanations of dead bodies including the vivid one of a mother who drowned with her baby wrapped in her arms, or boats or refugees that lost way and ended up stuck on rocks – and the passengers afraid of being returned to where they came from fled into forests and people’s gardens. The life jackets, personal items and rubber boat pieces kept arriving at the shores alongside dead bodies of men, women, young and children – and so on. And while we were talking with Kostas one of the days, he received a call to go out on the seas and check on a rubber boat sighted by the coast guard to have got stuck not far away from where we were. It was two days of contemplation, but also gratitude for the courage and sacrifice these people had made. With these conversations, we agreed to keep the lives and personal stories of the refugees that arrived here out of the project narrative, but rather take Kostas’ story for the comic book. We believe the Comic Book we have created will help shed more light on the scope of the refugee crisis as well as get European local communities to identify with people like Kostas and hopefully act like Kostas as we support our new European members to settle in. Finally, in our proposal, we suggested that we would get the stories dramatized by students in the different cities, but due to the change in approach – towards only taking Kostas’ recounts as the other stories would be too heavy, we decided to leave this out as it is served well in the comic book. Moreover, the LARP has evolved to be an act in itself where each group that will play the LARP will indeed dramatize the project stories. And then a landscape cut out of the Comic Book that can be found on the project website - https://www.thejourney.today/