The Pacer Blog: Walking, Health and Fitness

In November and December 2019, Pacer teamed up with UNCHR to launch our UNHCR: Step With Refugees special challenge. This challenge promoted walking and raised awareness of the UNHCR (the UN refugee agency) “2 Billion Kilometers to Safety” challenge. This Step With Refugees challenge represents the 2 billion kilometers that displaced people are forced to travel every year. Join the challenge and walk 102 km with us from November 19th to December 18th to match the journey of Alin, a refugee who was forced to travel 102 km from Myanmar to Bangladesh. Read on for more information about the Step With Refugees Challenge and UNHCR!

While the challenge is over, you can still join the UNHCR Pacer group by clicking this link: Don’t have the Pacer app yet? Download Pacer for free (on mobile)!

*Note: This challenge is available to iOS users in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and South Korea. If you’re not in one of these areas, we plan to launch future challenges that will be open to more Pacer users!

What is the UNHCR, and what is the Step With Refugees Challenge All About?

Pacer’s 102 km UNHCR: Step With Refugees Challenge challenges Pacers to match the journey of Alin, a refugee from Myanmar, who traveled 102 km from Myanmar to Bangladesh. Alin and her family traveled the 102 km in 10 days, but we’re giving Pacers 30 days to ensure more people can participate. When walking, consider that Alin and her husband had to carry relatives with them as well. Alin carried their two small children, while her husband carried her mother-in-law who could not walk such a long distance.

There’s no purchase required to join the challenge. We hope that you’ll walk in solidarity with refugees, and we encourage you to visit the Step With Refugees website to learn more about UNHCR and its mission. You can help raise awareness by sharing this challenge, and sharing information from UNHCR to your social media or with your friends.

We’ll be producing additional content about Step With Refugees designed to be easy to share and help raise awareness. Stay tuned, and happy walking in November and December. Get healthier, feel good and do good!

About UNHCR

The UNHCR is the United Nations refugee agency. Since 1950, UNHCR has provided assistance to refugees, internally-displaced people and others forced to flee where they live. The help provided by UNHCR allows these displaced people to rebuild their lives and provide for their families. UNHCR employs over 16,000 people and works in over 130 countries worldwide. It also gathers data on displaced people to determine how many people need help, what help they need and how best to help these vulnerable people.

About Step With Refugees

Every year, refugees travel a collective 2 billion miles (roughly 1 billion miles) from their homes to reach the nearest place of safety. While 80% of refugees live in countries neighboring their countries of origin, their journies are often long, dangerous and difficult. Their journeys, often mostly on foot, take them through jungles, deserts, and hills – often while assisting or carrying young children or older relatives.

Step With Refugees – 2 Billion Kilometers to Safety is an effort to encourage people to walk a collective 2 billion kilometers in support of these refugees. This campaign helps to raise awareness about the sheer scale of displacement worldwide, as well as bring important facts (like the fact that most refugees stay close to home, and only 1% are ever resettled to third countries).

For more information on 2 Billion Kilometers to Safety, click this link.

Special UNHCR: Step With Refugees Badges

Pacers who achieve 102 km (~64 miles) in the 30-day challenge (Nov 19th – Dec 18th) will be awarded the unique, gold completion badge. Users who make it halfway to 51 km (~32 miles) earn the unique, silver halfway badge. The top 1,000 users worldwide earn an extra special blue Top 1000 badge. Scroll down to view this month’s unique badges!

Step With Refugees Halfway Badge (51 km)

Step With Refugees Completion Badge (102 km)

Top 1000 Badge

How do I join the UNHCR: Step With Refugees challenge?

If you’re an iOS Pacer user in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, or South Korea, you would have seen the Step With Refugees challenge in your challenge list (assuming you read this before Dec 18th, 2019). Click the “Join” button to join directly, or click anywhere else on the challenge card for more details.

The UNHCR Would Like to Contact You

The UNHCR would like to reach out to you with more information on the 2 Billion Kilometers to Safety campaign and efforts to help refugees like Alin around the world. To join the challenge, you’ll need to click “Yes” when asked to allow the UNHCR to contact you via email.

Clicking “Yes” means that Pacer will provide your Pacer registered email to the UNHCR so that they can contact you in the future. If you don’t wish to be contacted by UNHCR, please click “No.” We’ll be offering other unique challenges in the future that don’t require this step, so please stay tuned.

UNHCR: Step with Refugees Challenge Homepage

Clicking on the challenge card takes you to the challenge homepage, with additional information on the challenge. You can click for challenge details, or join from this page.

Join the UNHCR: Step With Refugees Challenge Group!

You can join the UNHCR: Step with Refugees Challenge Group directly from the challenge page. Simply click the “Sponsoring Group” tab below the challenge information to join.

We’ll be posting information on the challenge and UNHCR as well as stories of actual displaced persons who’ve been forced to walk dozens or hundreds of kilometers to reach safety.

Challenge Rules

Here are the challenge details for those who want to learn more information. The Step With Refugees Challenge is a distance challenge, with a goal of 102 km. Users can log a maximum of 25 km per day to keep the challenge fair, and avoid extreme behavior. Users from the US, UK, Canada, Australia and South Korea can join. Tiebreaker rules are the same as our standard distance challenges.

Get Pacer

If you haven’t downloaded the Pacer app yet, download Pacer for free (on mobile)! You can also check out our website (mobile or desktop) or follow our blog for more great walking and healthy lifestyle tips.