burma-awareness:

Click here to play an educational interactive game created by the UNHCR which allows players to step into the shoes of a refugee. Fleeing a home, crossing into a new country and starting a new life are all simulated throughout the game. Although it is a game and in that aspect, not realistic as the players get multiple attempts and “restarts” when a decision proves to be deadly, I found the game quite intense and enlightening when I really took it seriously and pretended I was the refugee in the game. Some may find it a bit simplistic, but I would recommend it for people who want an alternative way to learn about some trials, obstacles and scenarios a refugee has to go through. 

If you do try it, let us know how you find it: thought provoking or just too superficial? 

What it does is an awesome job at making a game out of people’s lives and suffering. Damn it people, why is it so hard to accept that you don’t have to pretend to be ‘in their shoes’ because you will never endure what they do, that their suffering is more real than some game on the internet, that they are not there for people to feel intellectually superior so they can mock feel sympathetic as they sit in their comfy rooms and try to play survival when it isn’t life-or-death for them. This is no where near what the real people go to. Pretending it is at all ‘enlightening’ is a privileged joke.

The real people don’t get a restart. Or multiple lives.

A game. Of all things, their suffering has been reduced to a game.