[p4k] Report on GK's Ayiti in Guatemala
Elena Haliczer, of Games For Change, sent us this amazingly fascinating report about her experience playing and discussing Global Kids' Ayiti with youth in Guatemala at a summit of Central American youth leaders and senior leaders in Central America, many of whom were working in government but who had had backgrounds in, for example, guerrilla military groups:
I realized I never got back to you about my experience playing Ayiti with a group in Guatemala. G4C was asked by the Project on Justice in Times of Transition to talk about games (and unexpectedly social media since nobody else was talking about it, which made me happy since that is my particular expertise) on a panel on using creative strategies to engage youth in social causes.The event itself "Leaders of the Present/Lideres del Presente" was a summit of Central American youth leaders hand-picked by PJTT and senior leaders in Central America, many of whom were working in government but who had had backgrounds in for example, guerrilla military groups.
The two major themes were youth violence and natural disasters, as those were the two issues all Central American countries face.
The group of young leaders came from fairly diverse backgrounds. Some were lower class, former gang members or guerrilla group members, who'd decided, either upon being sent to and getting out of prison, or through other experiences, to fight for youth like them, to keep young people out of the same situations.
Others were middle to upper class, with parents who were academics or working in government. Many of them had studied or were currently going to college in the U.S..After our panel, which was pretty good--Wendy Luers, who is one of the founders of the Project on Justice in Times of Transition, asked me to do a follow-up workshop, which is when we played Ayiti.
We had about twenty attendees to this little impromptu affair. I explained G4C's mission, the festival, upcoming network, and then we did some game play. I thought they'd really connect with Ayiti because most of my participants were from impoverished backgrounds, or were working directly with those who were.
Their reactions were fascinating. I took them through two years, coaching them initially on possible outcomes I'd seen by making certain decisions, and letting them make their own without coaching in the second year.
Most of them felt initially that either education, or money were the best strategies for playing the game. They wanted to educate the kids, but soon decided they should educate the parents instead.
When it came to buying things at the store, they went for the home remedies and shoes immediately since those were the things many of them had depended upon year to year to stay healthy, saying that books would only work in an imaginary household where the parents would have energy to invest time in getting the kids to read, or where any of them could read at all.
School they either felt was a luxury or completely useless, and actually a short argument ensued about who had gone to school and who hadn't to greater or lesser real-life impact. Then there was a discussion of the availability of education in their countries, and frustration expressed at the fact that most of it is Catholic education and therefore aligned against traditional indian practices and culture and the root of the erosion of ethnic cultures in their countries.
Game play, in short provoked some really thoughtful discussions and expressions of real-world problems---which is the point of course.
We finished two years and discussion turned to the format of the game. Many of them were concerned about the fact that the game is a digital, web-based one. That it would require a computer. Many of them work with people who have no access to computers or internet. Internet penetration is fairly low in rural parts of Central America. Most people can't afford computers, and even in the cities, the majority of people head to internet cafes which are often prohibitively expensive. However, most people have cell phones.
The two formats that ended up being the most popular among the workshop attendees and also the following one-on-one's I did with people, were either cell phone games or board games, and the ideas that began to take shape rested within those formats. Other formats that appealed were card-based and a few event/festival games.
In terms of Ayiti, people were interested in the characters and got emotionally involved with the family. They liked the music and the design. They wanted to see more grit, but quickly noted as they played that the situation was communicated well enough and enough to make people care about the issue.
Elena
