The Syrian refugee project is a project in which we make people go through a simulation as a refugee and have to go through the same process as actual refugees goes through in order to get accept. We did this to give people a better understanding about what a refugees goes through in real life and how difficult it can be. In the beginning of this of this project our team made goal to give people a new perspective of the Syrian crisis, and to have participants to run our simulation again.
When we first started this project we had know no idea how the exhibition was going to by like. What Dr. P did is give us three ideas to start off on how it will look like: The first one being a regular exhibition, second being a play and lastly working with the IRC(International Rescue Committee). We had a Socratic seminar about which idea we liked and my group and I didn't wanted the play since people can get nervous while on stage, this gave a few student an idea that they talked to Dr. P about during lunch.
When we first started this project we had know no idea how the exhibition was going to by like. What Dr. P did is give us three ideas to start off on how it will look like: The first one being a regular exhibition, second being a play and lastly working with the IRC(International Rescue Committee). We had a Socratic seminar about which idea we liked and my group and I didn't wanted the play since people can get nervous while on stage, this gave a few student an idea that they talked to Dr. P about during lunch.
These are some of the notes the small group wrote down.
After they talked about it the small group talked about it they agreed on a simulation for our exhibition and revealed it to us in a very interesting way. On that day Dr. P gave us a surprise test but out of nowhere ISIS (students pretending to be ISIS) showed up. After that we where given three choices: do the test, join ISIS or leave. When we were given those options surprisingly a bunch of students actual left but once they returned we were given a description about what the exhibition will be. (Below is a picture of ISIS arriving)
To give us a better understanding of hoe the simulation will work we made a character sheet of a Syrian refugee and how or where they would go. I was inspired by an article I read which was about a refugee who traveled from Turkey to Germany but on his way to Greece a child fell off the boat and he went to rescue him. I took this story and turned into an idea of what a "Refugee" in project would/could do and made a chart of the possibility. Here's a link of the map I made for the refugee. Click
Out of all of the work and handouts we did the most memorable one for me was when we had to guess speakers from the elementary school that lived at a refugee camp when they were little. What made this the most memorable handout and note taking was it was from people who actually experienced this first hand. We hear stories on the news about sad refugee stories but it's a bit different when you're listening to it face to face you get this feeling that makes you think in their shows. In my notes you can see that I wrote down important moments that happened in their story and what made it most interesting about it.
After this we formed into groups that represented a station that we will have in the exhibition. The Station I got was Raqqa, Syria, which meant that we had the beginning of the exhibition, in order to get a better understanding of the location my team and I had to do research involving Raqqa. We divide it into for we can all do equal amount of work, the trick to our research was that Raqqa is under control of ISIS so most of it we couldn't really answer such as government type or it's currency. I did everything that is outline read and the topics where difficult to find since most info about inside ISIS is unknown. I did learn one technique when research which is be very specific on what you mean since when researching about their military power I got articles about attacks by ISIS.
Next we started discussing about how we envision our station and what we should involve in or add to make it feel more realistic. We made a Google Doc about what we envision for our project and what we're going to need for it. The difference between this and our final draft not much changed besides not using cardboard guns and the way the citizen that gets killed. I will admit I didn't worked on this a lot compared to my other group members but that was because I was sick the day we got the documents.
We then made a munch more detailed and descriptive information about our station such as the characters origins and why their there. For example my character is named Hajid and he was raised to be a Muslim that should tell everyone about how power Allah is. So when the Syrian civil war started and the invasion of Raqqa occurred he stayed to help his parents and to convince people inside of Raqqa that ISIS is not true Muslim. This will eventually lead to his death that will happen during the exhibition. The proudest thing for me in this documents was that I created an origin for my character which took me time to think of it. When we started doing playtest we started realizing that then cardboard guns were really unrealistic and that I should have people involve so that way it's more realistic. To be honest I really didn't based him off of anybody just thoughts about how someone very religious would act.
Before our exhibition we had to right a hand written essay to see if we remembered about the project. What I wrote about is something I think most people around my age should know and that is who's on what side in the Syrian civil war. I spilt the war into four different groups those being: ISIS, Assad, Kurds and the Rebels. Each one has different allies and enemies such as how the rebels have the support of the U.S and France but fight Assad and ISIS.
When we did our first play test I remembered that no one in my group had any idea on what to specifically say. I found the first play test weird since most people were fellow classmates and had an idea on what we were doing. Now thinking back to it we changed so much about it such as how instead of me shouting "I believe in Jesus!" I now say that I didn't say anything. The biggest change was that we had two "ISIS" members and one said nothing at all, now he's asks to the person I spoke to, what did I told them.
For our second playtest we had fellow students and teacher to use as refugees. My group an I came up with scripts so that we could memorize what to say. I also remembered a few teachers surprise by how much pain I look to be and that was because I actually fell down pretty hard. Don't worry I was fine, in fact I actually told my team that to make it look more realistic I should get hurt but not to much.
In our third test we had 9th graders be the refugees and this time we had costumes to make us look more in character. I remember some of my 9th grade friends telling how scary Lily (girl on the right) since she screamed at everyone and bossed them around.
Before we got to do are last play test Dr. P decide to make my group have a single test run. This was probably our worst test run since Dr. P took on of the "ISIS" roles in which he took the person talking but didn't took me.After this test run Dr. P told the two "ISIS" members to scare him into putting the coffee down, which we gave Miguel (guy on the right) to interrogate about what I told them.
In our last play test we had fellow 10th graders go through it and to be honest they were all joking and being disrespectful. I understand that your friends are there and you want to talk and mess with them but when we're working hard on our exhibition it was a little disrespectful.
When it was finally exhibition day all of my group was excited but nervous, we luckily found a PBC pipe that can work as a sort of weapon "ISIS" could us. During the exhibition I remember a lot of people scared about Lily's scream and listen to her orders, they even wrote about in the responses we got. I would say it was cool that "ISIS" attacked people out of nowhere which was last minute planned. If I were to do something different about this it would be my response to "ISIS" since I only responded with "Nothing" I wish I said something about how they weren't real Muslims. If there was any advice I would give to people it would to prepare a lot for it since my group went from being not prepared for to prepared for it on our last few play test.
Before we got to do are last play test Dr. P decide to make my group have a single test run. This was probably our worst test run since Dr. P took on of the "ISIS" roles in which he took the person talking but didn't took me.After this test run Dr. P told the two "ISIS" members to scare him into putting the coffee down, which we gave Miguel (guy on the right) to interrogate about what I told them.
In our last play test we had fellow 10th graders go through it and to be honest they were all joking and being disrespectful. I understand that your friends are there and you want to talk and mess with them but when we're working hard on our exhibition it was a little disrespectful.
When it was finally exhibition day all of my group was excited but nervous, we luckily found a PBC pipe that can work as a sort of weapon "ISIS" could us. During the exhibition I remember a lot of people scared about Lily's scream and listen to her orders, they even wrote about in the responses we got. I would say it was cool that "ISIS" attacked people out of nowhere which was last minute planned. If I were to do something different about this it would be my response to "ISIS" since I only responded with "Nothing" I wish I said something about how they weren't real Muslims. If there was any advice I would give to people it would to prepare a lot for it since my group went from being not prepared for to prepared for it on our last few play test.