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Escape to Safety Installation – a simulated experience of asylum seeking

Escape to safety is an interactive multimedia installation that enables learners to experience something of what it is like to be a refugee seeking asylum in Britain. It is designed for young people and adults from the age of 11 upwards. It provides the opportunity to think about issues such as:

  • What is the welcome we want to give to refugees?
  • What is your image of asylum seekers in Britain?
  • Where does this image come from?

Each participant ‘walks in the shoes’ of the refugees from Eritrea, Iran and Sudan, through a labyrinth of 8 stations depicting the different stages a refugee experiences as they seek asylum in Britain.

‘Brilliant – makes you feel what it’s like to be a refugee,’ (secondary school pupil)

‘Changed my mind about refugees,’ (secondary school pupil)

Escape to Safety is suitable for the Citizenship curriculum for KS3 upwards, but also has strong links to English, PSHE, History, Geography and RE.

Resources to support Escape to Safety in the classroom

Learning Outcomes

  • Increased understanding of why refugees flee their countries
  • Increased understanding of the challenges finding safety in the UK
  • Increased understanding of the challenges of being an asylum seeker

Here you can listen to Global Link’s fifth Escape to Safety Soundtrack – now a digital story – produced in 2020

One hour Lesson Plan to accompany Escape to Safety

Explain to learners that they will be going on a virtual journey (which lasts 15 minutes). Learners will press play on the MP3 players OUTSIDE the exhibition and only enter when the voice on the soundtrack tells them to. Learners enter individually, at 1-2 minutes intervals, which means that, in a group of 30 learners, there will be learners waiting to go through the exhibition, while, after 15 minutes of the first learners entering, there will be learners coming out of the exhibition. They will be virtually walking in the footsteps of 3 people who have had to flee their countries and are seeking asylum in the UK. The men are from Iran and Sudan. The woman is from Eritrea. You could start by finding these countries on a map.

Here is a link to an Activity pack for learners to fill in before they go through the exhibition, or after they come out of the exhibition.

Here is a link to a Comprehension sheet which learners can use to find answers to the questions as they go through the exhibition.

For further extension work, the script is available

Finally, please give Global Link feedback 

Booking Escape to Safety for your venue

The installation measures 5.5m x 6.5m (20 feet x 16 feet) and is constructed out of forty 2.5m high fire-proofed hardboard panels, click on the image opposite for plan of the exhibition.

Transport and assembly is provided by Global link. It can be erected in a large classroom or school hall for a week or more at a time. Global Link deliver, erect and collect the exhibition, and will provide training to use the exhibition, including teaching activities for teachers to deliver the workshops themselves. The cost of this is £850 for 1 - 2 weeks in your school or other setting (in the Northwest of England).

The first soundtrack and exhibition was produced in 1999 with funding from Amnesty International and the Churches Commission for Racial Justice. The current soundtrack was written and produced by Gisela Renolds, with music by Adrian Hughes, recorded at Shireshead Studios, and funded by Lancashire County Council. For information about booking the full exhibition, please contact Gisela on 01524 36201.