Vocational School of Justice
OUTDOOR GAMES MINIMIZED THE SCARS OF WAR
Refugee kids tried to minimize the scars of war with outdoor games as part of the project titled, “See like a Kid”, developed by the students of Faculty of Communication, Izmir University of Economics (IUE). IUE communicators, who want to say, “Stop” to negative discourse about Syrian children, who have been forced to flee their homes, brought almost 40 Syrian children together at the outdoor games festival held on campus. IUE students played “catch the ball”, “hopscotch”, “dodgeball”, “tag”, “angry birds”, etc. with the kids. The happiness on children’s faces was worth seeing.
Students Enginalp Erkısa, Bahadır Tunahan Civan, Alican Cura, Yiğit Kocayol, Yavuz Kaya, Ecem Çelik, Büşra Germir, Şevval Asena Çelik, Duygu Uçkaç, Buğu İrem Kaymakçı, Yasemin Ece Çiçek, Murat Yılmaz, Aytül Öteçelebi, Turuhan Alkır, Emre Ekin, İdil Tuba Salar, Erel Karanfil, and Aytuna Yüken aim to stop the hatred towards refugee kids with the social responsibility project, which was developed under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Ebru Uzunoğlu, Dean of IUE Faculty of Communication, Lecturers Assoc. Prof. Dr. Selin Türkel and Aytül Özkan.
Enginalp Erkısa, a senior at IUE Department of Public Relations and Advertising, said, “We see that each activity we do with Syrian children help them participate in life more effectively. We hope to prevent the discourse of hatred towards refugee children with this project. We can see that perspectives of many of our friends participating in this project also change in time. This alone is a proof of how appropriate this project is. Would like to remind the society that these kids are just kids regardless of their religion, language, race, etc.”
‘Being othered hurts’
Erkısa stated that these children, who had been forced to flee their homes, opportunities because of the war, had to face a difficult life without enjoying their childhood and the fact that society othered them hurt them even more. Erkısa pointed that they wanted to feature discourse of love instead of hatred with their project.