This morning on my twitter feed the UNHCR was promoting a kid’s game—“Against all odds”—which I had never heard of. Turns out they have been working on building “empathy” in your children worldwide since 2005 with this game to be used in classrooms. The goal is for Western children to accept “integration” (note they always shun the word assimilation!).
Here is some of what ‘wikipedia’ says about it (emphasis mine):
Against All Odds is an Adobe Flash video game developed by UNHCR designed to teach players about the plight of refugees. Originally released in Swedish in 2005, the game has been translated into several languages, the English edition of which was released in November 2007.
Initial funding for the project came from a grant of NOK 1 million from Statoil to UNHCR’s Baltic and Nordic regional office, with the aim of developing a project to reach young people and promote integration in the region.
UNHCR decided to proceed the project as a web-based game, a medium which could reach a large number of young people, require no distribution costs and minimal marketing costs. The game was aimed at 12 – 15 year olds, an age where people began to develop ideas regarding refugees and similar issues.
In Against All Odds, the player takes the role of a refugee, and plays through twelve stages – depicting his persecution and flight from his native country, through to eventual integration into a foreign country as an asylum seeker.
In awarding a prize in Austria, a jury said this, according to wikipedia:
The jury praised the game for building understanding, empathy and concern for the plight of refugees in the player
Swedish young teens have had eight years of this indoctrination—-do you think it worked there? See here and here.