- How did you find this game?
- So boring!
- Why?
- Because I couldn’t move at all!
- What country were you given?
- Somalia!
(Dialogue from the migrations workshop at
Guido Pitocco School in Castelnuovo di Porto, Rome)
Some were excited, some others bored and frustrated. Last week, at the Guido Pitocco School in Castelnuovo di Porto (Rome), CISP has opened its migrations workshop with a game. It immediately caught the students’ attention.
“Free to move? It depends” – as the game’s called – is a creation by the literature teacher Albina Rumeo (Parco della Vittoria School, Rome) and it had previously been tested with other students and presented to teachers at the Olomouc International Seminar.
The game’s purpose is making students understand that migration is a global process and letting them empathise with migrants while de-centralising their point of view.
It all starts by randomly assigning a different citizenship to each student – they could be from Italy, Ecuador, Somalia, United States of America, China, Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates, Romania, etc.
Each citizenship allows the student to move to a certain extent: remain on your chair, move chair, freely move around the room, freely decide if you wish to leave the room. As to say, your freedom of movement depends on your passport.
Students with more powerful passports were allowed to leave the room, they played and had fun. The others spent the time alone, got bored and were left behind.
“So unfair”, said some students, “as some had more fun than others, they could travel more”.
Through other interactive games and discussions, the workshops let students understand that different countries give you a different degree of freedom to move. Eventually, they could answer four important questions about global migrations.
- What is a passport?
- What is a Visa?
- What is the passport index?
- Why some passports are “weaker” than others?
All materials for this workshop will be soon shared on the Resources page of this website. Indeed, the sharing of experiences and resources makes the basis to build an active community of teachers working towards Global Citizenship Education and the 17 SDGs.
The Get Up and Goals! and this website will be the place for teachers to meet, share their work and get inspired by the works of their colleagues, regardless of where they live and teach.
Today, we thank Ms. Albina Rumeo for sharing her ideas and creativity with us, and thank all teachers willing to follow her in building this community, acting like real global citizens.
Last but not least, we remind you next week’s International Conference on Migrations and SDGs within the global citizenship education, organised by our partner Suedwind.
Follow the Get Up and Goals! Facebook page for live updates!
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