I recently read an article that resonated with me connecting the new "Pokemon Go" game to the situation in Syria. No one can deny the popularity of "Pokemon Go" and the impact it has had. The latest news is that Pokemon Go has reached Brazil, among 77 other countries already playing the game. So, as one headline reads, “If Pokemon can cross borders, why can’t a refugee?"

In 2016, we have the power to make an interactive virtual game that gets people to chase after Pokemon in real world streets, but we haven’t been able to help thousands of refugees displaced from their homes. It’s easy for us as bystanders to hear these stories in our privileged lives and think about how sad it is, but still do nothing about it. It is much easier for us to get up off our couches and take to the streets to find those cute little figures hiding around town. If we have so much time to play "Pokemon Go," why don’t we have time to help the refugees?

A graphic designer from Syria, Saif Aldeen Tahhan, created his own version of "Pokemon Go" that displays images of the game in Syria, an eager attempt to turn millennial attention to the crisis in Syria. However, in his version, phones are held up against backdrops of war-torn Syria showing items needed by citizens. “Syria Go” shows finding a medical kit in a bombed street, finding books in an abandoned school and finding a buoy in the sea during a journey to safety. Tahhan’s version of the addictive virtual game offers a perspective of actual reality and makes these dire situations more prevalent. As the article notes, “he wanted to take advantage of the popularity of the game to convey the pain and suffering of Syrian reality."

Syrian activists are also using the popularity of "Pokemon Go" to bring attention to children stuck in the conflict, whose lives are drastically different than those lucky to play the game. Kids are shown holding Pokemon with a caption saying “help me” and “save me” to allude to the need in the game to go to that spot to help those in need. One particular image displays a Pokemon crying next to a young boy with a caption, “I am in Syria -- come save me.” It helps offer a different perspective to a topic that is otherwise forgotten. There is something about seeing an innocent and crowd-pleasing image like Pokemon against a background of destruction that catches your eye.

It seems that people in the western world are still blind to the struggles of five years of Syrian civil war that has killed 400,000 people, injured more than one million and displaced 11.3 million people. But there is still something we can do. We can start to gain awareness to the problems they face and "Pokemon" seems like a relevant way to do it.