Hide and Seek school program

While we remain at our temporary location, the Hide and Seek program for Years 5 – 7 students, is being delivered as an outreach program to schools with four schools having already participated this year.

The program focus is on stories of hiding and students participate in activities that explore physically hiding and hiding in plain sight as well as hearing stories about those who survived in these ways. Physically hiding asks students to choose one object, from a range of objects, that they would take with them if they had to leave somewhere quickly. During the hiding in plain sight activity, students receive a replica false identity card, they glue their own picture to it and they have about 3 minutes to remember the information on the card.

During the Term 1 school holidays, we welcomed 12 students and 2 teachers from EQDemic, a coaching school, to our temporary site for the Hide and Seek program. Whilst the students were initially quite shy, they engaged with the program very quickly and there was great debate as to which item they would take with them during the ‘physically hiding’ activity. The most agreed items were medicine to treat illnesses and family jewellery as it could be sold when needed. On to the ‘hiding in plain sight’ activity and the students studied their false identities with great attention. Despite our best efforts to catch them with tough questions, the students excelled at remembering their new identities. The students were very eager to ask Sarah Saaroni different questions and they were reflective on the responses she gave.

Whilst it was lovely to have the flexibility to have the EQDemic group in our centre over the school holidays, as we remain in our temporary premises, our Hide and Seek program will continue to be delivered as an outreach program and we are excited to bring this to more schools in the second half of the year.