1. Packing Your Backpack to Flee
Overview:
This exercise simulates the kind of practical and emotional choices a refugee must make when leaving home, as well as the unforeseen consequences these choices can have.
Objectives:
To foster empathy for the emotions and problems refugees face in leaving their homes.
To try to understand some of the practical needs of refugees.
Instructions:
A war is going on in your country, and your parents wake you early in the morning before the sun comes up and say, “We are in too much danger if we stay here in our home. We must flee immediately to someplace safer. Perhaps we can find shelter in the countryside or another town, or perhaps we will have to flee to another country? Pack your school backpack as fast as you can with what you think you will need, what you want to take. We don't know how long we will be running, or where we are going, or how we will get there. You have to be able to carry your backpack by yourself. We might get separated. Take what you need. Hurry! You only have 15 minutes to pack!!”
Everyone gathers together with their backpacks and examines what they brought with them.
Explain what motivated you to bring your backpack contents? What practical considerations guided your choices? What emotions guided your choices?
How did you feel making these choices under the pressure of time?
What did you leave behind and why? What was hardest to leave behind and why?
What did you forget to pack that you will need as a refugee?
Continue this presentation for examples from Syrian and Central African Republic refugees brought with them.

2. Nour, a 20-year-old artist from Syria, packed two bags but was told by smugglers that he could only take one. He left behind his clothes to keep his bag of items with personal meaning: Small bag of personal documents, a rosary (gift from his friend; Nour doesn’t let it touch the floor), a watch (from his girlfriend; it broke during the journey), Syrian flag, Palestinian charm, silver and wooden bracelets (gifts from friends), guitar picks (one also a gift from a friend), cell phone and Syrian SIM card, photo ID, one shirt.

3. Omran, a 6-year-old from Damascus, Syria, brought: One pair of pants, one shirt, a syringe, marshmallows and sweet cream, soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, bandages.

4. One family of 31 people (seven women, four men and 20 children) lost all their belongings on their journey from Aleppo, Syria, to Greece. They saved just one bag: One shirt, one pair of jeans, one pair of shoes, toiletries, one diaper, two small cartons of milk, and some biscuits, personal documents and money, sanitary pads, a comb.

6. Aboessa, who is 20 years old and from Syria, has been travelling with her 10-month-old daughter, Doua. They were in a rubber raft when Turkish police detached the boat’s motor, and they had to use makeshift paddles to make it to shore.
Hat for the baby, an assortment of medication, a bottle of sterile water, and a jar of baby food, a small supply of napkins for diaper changes, a hat and a pair of socks for the baby, assortment of pain relievers, sunscreen and sunburn ointment, toothpaste, personal documents (including the baby’s vaccination history), wallet (with photo ID and money), cell phone charger, yellow headband.

7. This 34-year-old father lived and practiced medicine in Germany for eight years, and so he escaped the war in Syria to travel to Europe. He travelled in a dinghy with 53 others and almost made it to Greece, until a coast guard started yelling for them to stop and the boat was punctured. He treaded water for 45 minutes before he was rescued.
Money (wrapped to protect it from water), old phone (wet and unusable) and new smart phone, phone chargers and headphones (plus extra battery charger), 16GB flash drive (containing family photos).

8. Iqbal, a 17-year-old from Kunduz, Afghanistan, said he picked out items that would help him fit in: One pair of pants, one shirt, one pair of shoes, and one pair of socks, shampoo and hair gel, toothbrush and toothpaste, face-whitening cream, comb, nail clipper, bandages, 100 U.S. dollars, 130 Turkish liras, Smart phone and backup basic cell phone, SIM cards for Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey.
“I want my skin to be white and hair to be spiked,” he told the IRC. “I don’t want them to know I’m a refugee. I think that someone will spot me and call the police because I’m illegal.”