Film shows how devastated people become when they cannot read simple words or numbers

A provocative new video from the anti-poverty ONE campaign strips ordinary people of the ability to read to highlight the plight of refugee children who are denied an education.

The short film shows people from all walks of life, including doctors, students and teachers, who have been hypnotised to become temporarily illiterate.

Filmmakers then ask them to perform basic tasks such as reciting the alphabet, telling the time or writing their name.

Without basic literacy, the skills are impossible for the subjects to perform. A playwright cannot read her own script, while a doctor is unable to decipher the label on a medicine bottle.

The One campaign said the video, Could you forget everything you ever learned?, shows the difficulties and dangers experienced by the world’s 3.6 million child refugees who are denied access to education.

Roxane Philson, One’s chief marketing officer, said: “No one can reach their full potential without an education. We wanted to make that point in the most visceral way possible.

“The volunteers got a small glimpse of how different their lives would be if they couldn’t read or write.

“But for the millions of refugee children who won’t get an education it’s not just a scary few moments – it’s a lifetime of missed opportunities. This can and must change."

The video has been premiered ahead of the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants and President Obama’s Leaders’ Summit on Refugees, which take place later in September.

ONE is encouraging people to take action by signing a petition to put education at the forefront of discussion at the summits and set in motion a plan to provide one million refugee children with an education by the end of the school year.