How youth have developed a simulation game about participation in democratic processes.
Background
The project “Got to Act,” within which the game “The Incident in Mangotown” was created, started back in 2022. Three key partners — organizations from Ukraine, “Center for European Initiatives,” from Portugal, “My Madeira Island,” and from Georgia, “Student-Youth Council” — joined forces with a common idea to help young people become more knowledgeable about democratic processes and involvement in local policy development. Read on to find out what came of it.
“We wanted to give young people the opportunity to experience, in a playful way, what it’s like to influence processes in their society. What it’s like to have a voice, express opinions during public speeches, and propose improvements to the community situation. We also aimed for the youth to learn how to persuade others of their ideas, to be able to debate and communicate,” says Anastasia Mazur, president of the “My Madeira Island” association.
For the project organizers, it was important that democratic processes were explained in a simple and understandable form. This is why they chose the methodology of simulation games. Thus, in December 2022, in the Georgian city of Kobuleti, the first stage of the “Got to Act” project — the Learning to Act workshop — took place.
The workshop gathered 18 youth workers, government representatives, and directly young people from Ukraine, Portugal, and Georgia to understand the process of creating a simulation game and to develop methodological recommendations for its application.
“At the first meeting, it was interesting to see how young people, representatives of civil organizations, and government officials, who had no experience in developing or even playing simulation games, learned about this methodology and laid the foundation for Mangotown. The game turned out to be so interesting, and the participants so inspired, that some of them began to develop their own games for youth on various topics,” adds Anastasia.
About the Game
A pandemic rages in the world, preventing people from continuing their lineage. A group of young people is gathered and sent into space to preserve their health and not contract the disease. Beyond Earth, the youth remain for 40 years, staying the same age as when they left the planet. Meanwhile, on Earth, the pandemic is defeated, but no new inhabitants are born over these decades.
The group of young people evacuated from the planet returns home, facing the need to reintegrate into a world that has forgotten what it’s like to be young, work with youth, and support young people’s ideas.
In total, the game is designed for 30 people and two age groups: it can be played with youth aged 15 to 18 and a group aged 19 to 25. Participants take on the roles of the mayor, youth representatives, media, ordinary citizens of Mangotown, civil organizations. Together, they learn to communicate and negotiate about their rights and duties, expectations, and wishes.
Reaction to the Game
After creating the game at the workshop in Georgia, participants returned to their countries and conducted test game sessions among school and college youth in local communities.
“The feedback from the youth, who shared that they previously did not understand, for example, how elections work, but after the game, were ready to go vote, was valuable. In general, they were interested in playing the roles of influential people, having a voice. For instance, taking on the role of a city mayor, who could stop debates with his bell. Specifically, this showed us that in real life, young people may lack the feeling of having an impact on community life,” adds Anastasia.
One of the project participants was Viktoriya Stoma from Sumy. The youth worker shares that simulation games have become an integral format for their team’s work with youth: “After the ‘Got to Act’ project, our team of youth workers from the Sumy youth center ‘Romantika’ wrote our own simulation game ‘Me and My Community.’
In the summer, we held a two-day political development forum in the format of a simulation game. Overall, simulation games are an important tool in the work of youth workers, as they help create conditions for acquiring civic awareness skills among the youth, through experiencing a real situation, exploring the level of youth awareness about local self-government, and also — developing discussion skills, communication with authorities, and public institutions,” says Viktoriya.
| The game and all the materials are available at the web-site: https://got-to-act.eu/simulation-game The Capacity Building the the Field of Youth project has been developed in frames of Erasmus+ programme by consortium of 3 organisations: My Madeira Island from Portugal, Center for European Initiatives from Ukraine and Student-Youth Council from Georgia. |
