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Have you ever watched a child’s face light up with joy? That moment when the world around them fades, and for just a little while, they are simply playing. Laughing, connecting, creating.

Now imagine a child who has lost their home, their school, their sense of belonging. Imagine them stepping into a space where, through the glow of a screen and the hum of shared excitement, they find friendship, confidence, and a piece of their childhood restored.

This is what the Community Gaming Centre developed by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in Skopje, North Macedonia is about. Not just games. Not just screens. It’s about rebuilding what was lost — one play session, one connection, one moment of joy at a time.

Fostering new connections has always been a fundamental part of gaming. With approximately 3.32 billion active players worldwide and thousands of communities online and offline, gaming isn’t just entertainment, it’s a cultural force that transcends borders — a community builder and a space where connection thrives. The gaming industry is larger than most people imagine. By 2025, its annual revenue is expected to soar to $522 billion, surpassing both Hollywood and the music industries combined, several times over.

Yet, the humanitarian sector has barely scratched the surface of gaming’s potential as a powerful channel for skill-building, social integration, and economic opportunity. Inspired by this untapped potential for collaboration between the humanitarian sector, the gaming industry, and communities, UNHCR — in partnership with the International Committee of the Red Cross, with donations from Doniraj Kompjuter and Marriot Hotel, and support from the UNHCR Digital Innovation Fund — set about testing whether a Community Gaming Centre could foster connections, digital skills, and opportunities among young people in North Macedonia.

Purposeful play

More than just a place to play, the Centre, which opened in October 2024, is a space for integration, learning, and well-being. Designed for young people aged 7 to 18, from both the host and refugee community, it offers a safe environment to connect, build friendships, and develop skills that could help them navigate other aspects of their lives and — in the case of young people who have experienced forced displacement — their new reality. The Centre is equipped with gaming computers and consoles and staffed by skilled instructors, providing a space where groups of refugees and locals come together for bi-weekly sessions that foster friendships and build lifelong skills. In this space, play is purposeful. It’s about healing, learning, and growing. It’s about giving kids the tools to imagine new possibilities for themselves.

Most digitally connected young people already play video games. Instead of seeing this as a problem, we work with educators who understand the medium to guide its use toward something positive and productive — helping young people develop critical skills, build resilience, and engage meaningfully with their communities. Ensuring a mix of refugee and local youth means participants form social bonds across linguistic and cultural differences, break down barriers, and foster mutual understanding, turning gaming into a bridge for integration rather than isolation.

At its core, the Centre is about human connection. Since its opening, 14 young people have attended classes twice a week. Two thirds of these participants are refugees. The results so far speak volumes.

Fostering joy and mental health

Research suggests that video games can have a positive impact on youth mental health and well-being by providing a source of stress relief, social connection, and cognitive engagement. In situations of prolonged displacement, where people may struggle with uncertainty, isolation, and a loss of hope, video games can offer a much-needed sense of purpose and reassurance. This is what we are seeing in the Centre.

One participant, a 16-year-old Ukrainian girl, said:

“It positively impacts my mood. I feel more relaxed and happy. It’s lovely to have a place where I can unwind and be around friends!”

 

Every participant reported feeling happier after they started to visit the Centre, with 75% experiencing a positive impact on their mood and 25% reporting a significant positive impact.

Learning new skills

Being immersed in digital environments improves digital literacy — a near-universally important skill set across modern professions. As young people tend to engage with the digital world mainly through leisure, we see gaming as a gateway to teaching them essential skills. Besides structured play, every class at the Centre also includes a digital literacy segment, during which participants learn important skills such as basic Microsoft tools, online safety, responsible digital communication, information verification, and the ethical use of technology. By integrating these lessons with gameplay, we ensure that young people not only navigate digital spaces with confidence but also develop the analytical and problem-solving abilities essential for the modern world.

Beyond digital skills, participants also acquire skills that can be applied in the analogue world. Almost 90% of the participants in the Centre felt they’ve improved their teamwork and motor skills, and more than half believe these new abilities help them in other areas of life, whether at school, at home, or in their everyday interactions. They’re learning patience, strategy, and resilience. They’re discovering that failure or losing in a game isn’t the end; it’s just another chance to learn and to try again.

Making friends

Traditional approaches to refugee inclusion often focus on language classes and employment programmes, both of which are, of course, crucial. Another key aspect to ensuring that displaced people successfully integrate into host communities is social inclusion. Players who game together regularly create strong social ties that extend into offline social support for each other. This has been found to be especially true for games involving teams that engage in joint play with shared goals. Nearly every participant in classes at the Centre reported making new friends — five, on average! They’re not just playing games; they’re finding belonging in a world that once felt unfamiliar.

Mihail, 14, from Kharkiv, Ukraine, says:

“It’s more comfortable and more fun than staying at home, where I don’t have the chance to use such devices. We’ve made a lot of friends here. Because my friends come here too, I feel much happier, and I get to learn new things. Personally, I feel better and learn better.”

 

Globally, women and girls make up nearly 50% of gamers. However, without intentional design, community gaming centers risk becoming boys’ clubs. While the Center is run by both female and male educators and we selected games that appeal to diverse interests, the fact that only two girls signed up shows that we need to do better. For the next cohort, we’ll be working closely with our girl gamers to understand how we can better create spaces where women and girls feel safe, welcome, and free to participate.

Just like sports, community gaming is all about creating spaces where people can connect on their own terms, through activities that feel natural and familiar to them. By engaging in gaming, refugee children spend time with their peers, they become part of communities, reducing isolation and fostering social cohesion. All this ensures that they feel welcomed and included, and as a result they are more likely to learn the language of the host population, take part in local initiatives, work and ultimately have a positive view of their host communities and contribute to them.

Teodor Aleksovski, peer educator at the Centre, notes:

“Asylum seeker youth in the country have online classes, so the Gaming Centre is a much-needed space where they can spend in-person time together and socialize.”

 

The way forward

The Community Gaming Centre is part of a wider UNHCR initiative seeking to leverage digital leisure to enable refugees to actively participate in various roles within the realm of video games — helping to address the digital divide facing refugees and boost their wellbeing and self-reliance. While games have much to offer refugees, refugees also have the potential to contribute significantly to the gaming industry — if they’re given the chance.

Currently, 40% of all people on our planet play video games at least weekly. With more than 122 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, this means there could be as many as 50 million refugees who would love to play and connect with other gamers. Providing access to digital leisure would not only enhance their connections, skills, and wellbeing, but also bring talent, fresh ideas, and new players to the video game industry and communities.

In a world where digital connectivity is as essential as food and shelter, access to technology isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. Yet, for many displaced people, that access is limited or nonexistent. We know that displaced people are 50% less likely to have devices and access to the internet. From surveys and interviews, we also know they would be interested in gaming and learning to make games, but they need a lot of support to get started.

We see the Centre, and the underlying research that informed its development, as the first step toward a future where gaming can bring forcibly displaced and host communities together — and where refugees compete at the highest levels of esports, develop pathbreaking games to share their stories with the world, and earn a living doing what they love. Game on!