Opinion: designers can't save the world, but even the smallest intervention could help improve the conditions faced by the unprecedented number of refugees flooding Europe, says Richard van der Laken.

Each generation likes to believe that its problems are unique. Generally, history teaches us otherwise. There have always been refugees and they have always suffered. But the current refugee crisis may very well be without precedent.
There is no visible world war, yet we are confronted almost every day by pictures that suggest otherwise ? children in tents at the border between Greece and Macedonia, or the winning World Press Photo by Warren Richardson, in which a father passes his child through barbed wire at the Hungarian border.
According to the UNHCR, the number of people that have been forced to flee their homes has reached a post-war peak of 60 million, one third of whom have had to leave their country. That apocalyptic statistic should send shivers down our spine. We believe that the present generation of designers cannot just stand by and watch. The number of people that have been forced to flee their homes has reached a post-war peak of 60 million
What Design Can Do (WDCD) started the What Design Can Do Refugee Challenge, together with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Ikea Foundation, to call upon designers to come up with bold ideas that help improve the lives of millions of refugees.
Fellow designers have asked whether this competition raises false promises. ...