Inside the "play labs" helping refugee kids heal | Erum Mariam
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What sparked the idea to create humanitarian play labs for refugee children?
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. A heads up before we start, this episode includes discussion of genocide and violence against children. Please take care in deciding whether and when to listen. In 2017, more than 800,000 Rohingya people fled genocide in Myanmar, crowding into sprawling refugee camps in Bangladesh. Many were children who had seen things no child ever should. Educational leader Arum Maryam has spent three decades bringing play to children in crisis, through the BRAC Institute of Educational Development, one of the world's largest nonprofits based in Bangladesh. So when she got the call to visit one of these camps, she went, hoping to help these children heal.
She learned something unexpected.
The children had never seen these games before. They didn't know the rules. They didn't speak the language. Even the adult facilitators didn't know how to play. They were arranging the Scrabble tiles into patterns because that's what made sense to them. Standing there, I thought, there's got to be a better
way. In her talk, Erum shares what she learned, that it wasn't enough just to give these children something to play with. It had to be play they recognized. Working with her team, she built what she calls the Humanitarian Play Lab, spaces designed by the Rohingya community itself, filled with the games, rhymes, and art the children remembered from home.
It was specifically play from their own Rohingya culture that helped them feel pride, gain confidence, and experience joy after being violently forced to leave behind their home.
Irum introduces us to several of the kids whose lives these play labs changed. More than 50,000 children so far. And she makes the case that every child deserves the right to play their own play. That's coming up right after a short break.
And now, our TED Talk of the day.
In August 2017, the genocide in Myanmar had exploded overnight. The military were killing Rohingya people, setting their villages on fire. This was part of the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people. The women and men who had escaped were now flooding across the border, carrying infants and young children on their back. Within four months, over 850,000 people crammed into refugee camps in Bangladesh in a town called Cox's Bazar.
How did the 2017 Rohingya genocide shape the need for play‑based healing?
I am Bangladeshi and I live in Dhaka. I have spent my career working to make sure children have access to play when everything else in their lives has been in chaos. I have worked with children for over three decades now through BRAC, the world's largest NGO. While the Rohingya refugees were arriving by the thousand in Bangladesh, I got an urgent call from my BRAC colleague. He told me I had to go visit the refugee camps in Cox's Bazar and see how the children were doing. I thought about how much those kids had been through. They saw things that no child should ever see. I wondered, how would they ever recover? I believed play might help them reconnect with what they lost, their culture and their sense of home.
I believed play might heal them. And what we discovered over time was that it was not just any kind of play that would help them heal. It was specifically play from their own Rohingya culture that helped them feel pride, gain confidence, and experience joy after being violently forced to leave behind their home. So I'll go back to the beginning. After that phone call in 2017, I traveled to the camps in Cox's Bazaar. Aid workers had set up safe spaces for the children. I found children drawing guns in their art. That was not unusual. But I saw something that surprised me. Someone had donated Scrabble sets and Uno cards for the children. It was a generous gesture, but the children had never seen these games before.
They didn't know the rules, they didn't speak the language. Even the adult facilitators didn't know how to play. They were arranging the scrabble tiles into patterns because that's what made sense to them. Standing there, I thought, there's got to be a better way.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What sparked the idea to create humanitarian play labs for refugee children?
0:03–2:43
2
How did the 2017 Rohingya genocide shape the need for play‑based healing?
2:43–4:50
3
Why did traditional games like Scrabble and Uno fail in the refugee camps?
4:50–7:08
4
How were the play labs designed using Rohingya cultural games, rhymes, and art?
7:08–9:44
5
What impact did the rope‑jumping game have on Noor’s confidence and health?
9:44–11:48
6
How did the Rohingya seesaw game teach Muhammad empathy and responsibility?
11:48–13:10
7
In what ways did Tuhinur’s leadership of the Kabia empower her socially?
13:10–14:31
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from TED Talks Daily
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