Designing for and facilitating meaningful making with refugee children

The current political climate has seen the influx of refugees in many economically developed countries. Many of these children face challenges finding meaningful and enriching learning opportunities that foster authentic collaboration and engagement of their home cultures. One way that we aim to tackle this reality is through making. Accordingly, in this paper, we present observations from a workshop that implemented maker culture activities within a summer youth program for 16 refugees (5-17 years old).We examine the process of designing and implementing making sessions in collaboration with facilitators and children, as well as the facilitative moves that emerged throughout the program. We observe unique opportunities and points of discussion for 1) cultural bridging, 2) authentic language acquisition, and 3) meaningful making. Based on our findings, we discuss the lessons learned around embedding making in existing community spaces, the role of facilitation, and finally, the cultural contexts of making.