DENVER — Students at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies and the Colorado School of Public Health at CU Anschutz got a lesson on humanitarian aid work Sunday.
“We have our annual humanitarian simulation exercise. It's to help our students train to be humanitarian aid workers working in conflict zones and disaster areas around the world,” said Chen Reis, director of the humanitarian assistance program at the Korbel School of International Studies. “They're going around trying to get information about what's going on, while they're also being presented with challenges that they have to address during that part of the simulation.”
As part of the all-day simulation, students like Sam Colvett visited different stations around the D.U. campus and were confronted with different problems they had to address.
“It's kind of a way to get a taste of what it looks like in real life,” said Sam Colvett, a graduate student studying international studies and humanitarian assistance.
Each of the stations the students visited was staffed with a team of actors.
Some of the actors were actually aid workers who understand what it’s like to work in an environment that can become extremely unpredictable.
Kyle Williams participated in the simulation last year as a student.
This year, he volunteered to be an actor.
“It’s fun, it's engaging. But it's like stressful for participants to go through,” said Williams.
Colvett said the actors made the scenarios feel as real as possible.
“The actors are really into character. They're committing fully to their roles, which I think is good because it approximates kind of the way that things might look in the real world,” said Colvett.
Students faced unexpected curveballs, like when they encountered a shelter struggling to care for injured and sick refugees.
Some of the workers seemed indifferent, and others appeared overwhelmed by the refugees.
In another scenario, the students had to help an injured driver while responding to a mass flooding.
They were surrounded by a loud and hostile crowd.
Students also had to deal with border agents and security guards, as well as governments that were not organized or structured.
Students were evaluated on how they responded to each of the scenarios.
"It's one thing to learn about it in a classroom. It's quite another to try to experience it in real life,” said Reis. “This is their chance to practice to learn what their strengths are and what they need to work on so that they can be better prepared when they do graduate and go out and work in these settings.”
