Ticket to Safety
innovative solution for creative learning
Play. Re-think. Un-learn.
Ticket to Safety is a human rights educational tool and a fair-minded companion in inclusion trainings on mobility justice.
Designed in Vienna in 2022, the board game was developed to challenge prevailing perceptions about migration and security worldwide, to raise empathy among the general public and reckon with racial discrimination and other forms of othering. As an in-person, multiplayer card-based game, it takes the players and playeresses on a journey to advance understanding of migration issues and ask: who are the people behind the migratory statistics and what are their stories? Why do some tend to downplay certain situations of human suffering? Who has the right to protection? Who can leave? Who will be forced to stay and under which conditions? What is invisible and why? What does belonging mean? Who belongs, may belong?
The game fulfills the goals of global education and focuses primarily on creating an alternative to the colonial and Eurocentric narratives that sadly dominate the public space, as well as strengthening openness to diversity.
Examples of topics taken up in the game are (but not limited to) politics of movement, human rights, global challenges and interdependencies, the power of a passport, border control, climate crisis, gender inequalities and more.
Game events are held in corporate, governmental, educational, and community settings upon request.
How does the game work?
Ticket to Safety imitates a ‘simplified’ experience of a long haul to safety within the main migration routes in the world. Trying to get from a start point of insecurity to the end point of a relative safety, players and playresses are encouraged to step into the shoes of people on the move and discuss various scenarios, obstacles, injustices and human rights violations that can occur on journeys of migrations. While migrating you cannot predict the exact outcome of your journey. It depends on many factors: geography, migration policies, border control, integration programmes, labour market in the country of destination, and sometimes pure luck is what counts the most.
This board game provides foundation for inventive storytelling that consistently builds on engaging conversation in a relatively risk-free environment, giving an insight into real-life scenarios. Playing the game allows you to feel the difficulties experienced and ambiguous situations that in real life no one wants to undergo yet many are forced to do so.
The game is addressed to all people who want to reflect on their relationship with the world, and above all on the language we use to describe it and how it affects reality. No prior mobility justice knowledge is required.
Inside the box
1 Board map of the world’s congested human migration routes
160 colored plastic markers (40 each in Yellow, Blue, Red and Green, including some extra replacement in each color)
110 Mobility Cards (12 of each color: purple, yellow, green, brown, blue, orange, black, red, as well as 14 multi-colored wildcards)
30 Mystery Cards (10 Help Cards, 17 Obstacle Cards, 3 Trade Cards)
40 Destination Cards
1 Rules booklet
Game available in English.
Box size: 310x220x60mm.
We take fun seriously
Since 2022 Ticket to Safety was played by diverse audiences, from human rights defenders, educational specialists, to representatives of international organizations such as the UN Refugee Agency, OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), Hilfswerk International, Südwind, Austrian Commision for UNESCO, Human Rights Careers, Women Against Violence Europe (WAVE), Hint.Wien and Vienna Master of Arts in Applied Human Rights.
Take action yourself, right here and right now. Engage in play and co-create impact by hosting Ticket to Safety within your community. Learning through experiencing is the best way to learn and challenge assumptions (so also to unlearn some things).
Photos @fabiansorger.com
How can you bring the game to your community?
We are looking for organizations and community leaders who are interested in hosting us and embracing the topic of mobility justice around the world. Ticket to Safety game set is not for sale. Instead, we offer facilitated trainings that guarantee a certain quality of experience regardless of who plays. The training can be run as stand-alone event or can be combined with your courses, team-building activities and strategy away-days.
What makes it attractive? A game approach has three powerful advantages:
Change of perspective: challenges prevailing perceptions about migration and security worldwide leading to mindset shifts;
Empathy rise: brings a better understanding for the difficult journeys taken by People On The Move;
Transformation of complex matters: shifts the heavy topics on migration and climate emergency into an enlightening, critical conversation to advocate for and educate about human rights.
It is very important that the experience of the game participants is a positive one, providing meaningful, memorable and magical learning outcomes. For that, we charge fairly high fees for our facilitated training programmes. Without a trained, committed and skilled facilitator the game-based training on human rights could drift away from its original purpose.
PLAYED BY OVER 150 PEOPLE FROM 20+ DIFFERENT COUNTRIES
WHAT DO PEOPLE SAY ABOUT TICKET TO SAFETY?
“Ticket to Safety is a wonderful, very well thought-through boardgame that makes people realize what it means to be a refugee.”
“It was a great experience playing a game that balances well aspects of competition, strategic thinking and educational elements.”
“After having played a round of “Ticket to safety” board game I feel very pensive, reflecting on the status of the world and the difficulty some of us face to survive as a human being.”
“A super well structured game that allows for a fun experience. It immediately connects the people playing and gives very valuable reflections.”
It all begins with an idea. You can make it reality.
BECOME A SPONSOR OF THE PROJECT ON KICKSTARTER
It is very important that the experience of the game participants is a positive one, providing meaningful, memorable and magical learning outcomes. The kickstarter campaign will serve to change the scale of the project and cover the costs of customised illustrations and graphic design making it first migration focused boardgame funded by a women.