CHALLENGES AND GAMES. Suggested challenges and games for your group to complete over the Slum Survivor Weekend BUILD THINK EXPERIENCE CONNECT CHANGE

Transcription

1 CHALLENGES AND GAMES Suggested challenges and games for your group to complete over the Weekend BUILD THINK EXPERIENCE CONNECT CHANGE

2 Introduction Notes for Leaders 2 CHALLENGES AND GAMES The following pages contain suggested challenges and games for your group to complete over the Slum Survivor Weekend. You can use them as you see fit pick and choose the ones that you would like your group to do, or the ones that work best with the area in which you are building your slum. Up for even more of a challenge? Add in some of the more difficult extras we ve included! Each challenge will also have some teaching points about the reality of life for people living in the developing world and in informal settlements. This is the real aim of each challenge - to introduce your group to the reality of life for millions of people around the world. BUILD THINK EXPERIENCE You will also find a predicted timeframe next to each challenge this is a guideline only, feel free to stretch them out or make them shorter. The weekend is flexible for you to run it in whatever way works best for you and your group. Most of all, try to make the challenges fun as well as hard. We want your group to feel like they have had a laugh as well as had a tough time! CONNECT CHANGE

3 Introduction Prizes and Slum Money 3 PRIZES AND SLUM MONEY Prizes Each challenge should have a prize, to be won by a single family group. Since relies on removing aspects of normal life, the prizes should be kept simple food and drink or practical comfort items that are otherwise not allowed in the simulation. The prizes will add a bit of fun and competition to the weekend, feel free to adapt them to best suit your weekend. Examples of food and drink prizes: Fruit juice Soft drink Fruit Chocolate Examples of comfort and utility prizes: Pillows Bed rolls / sleeping mats A battery-powered radio A torch Additional, better quality, material for house construction Slum Money Another option is to use slum money over the weekend. This may take a little more time to organise, but is well worth it. You will need some form of counters or fake paper money to use as currency (e.g. monopoly money). Slum money can be earned in the challenges, games or any other task throughout the day. The use of the currency will be to buy dinner, additional shelter, luxuries and any other prizes. Each prize should have a set price, the challenge for the slum families will be spending the little they have wisely. You may even want to put a charge on water, as clean water in many places has a cost. Slum money can also come into other challenges such as the crime, illness or slavery challenges. Money may be taken or stolen and slum residents may need to buy medicine or purchase their family members back. This will be explained in a challenge where necessary. To make the use of slum money more realistic, we ve listed some more scenarios below where it could be incorporated into the weekend s activities: Bump up prices: Allow people to buy food with the money they have earned but at double the normal price (making it an even more significant sacrifice for the slum dwellers.) Corrupt police: In this situation the leaders ( police ) accept bribes for luxury items (comfort/utility items, additional food) which they then simply don t give to the slum dwellers. Either they withhold the item completely after accepting the bribe or exchange it for an alternative a lot less than the slum dwellers had asked for. Earn yourself some luxuries: Set tasks for the slum dwellers to do that will either earn them luxuries straight away, or slum money that they can exchange for luxury items. Tasks may include: additional washing up, pointless tasks (such as moving all the left-over slum material to one side of the camp and then asking them to move it all back again) or any other tasks that will occupy the slum dwellers for a period of time and challenge them.

4 CHALLENGE 1 Build Your Slum 4 CHALLENGE 1: BUILD YOUR SLUM To build an informal settlement for a group to sleep in for at least two nights. You may want to build a few settlements, depending on the number of people you have taking part. Almost 1 billion people around the world sleep in slums without security, with illness and without enough food. Help your group to understand some of this as they build their slum. Pallets, tarpaulin, rope, cardboard, plastic sheeting, basically anything you can find which might be useful! 2 hours maximum Set the group the task of building as many 2m x 2m (or bigger!) settlements as they need for everyone to sleep in. They can make their rooms as complex or as simple as they would like to, but they need to make sure that they do it within the time limit. Once the time has run out, remove any spare equipment and resources. People can earn Slum Money by finishing first. Things to talk about and questions to ask What are you excited about? How would you feel if you lived like this every day? What do you think would be some of the major problems? Remember that this will need to be done safely: make sure people are wearing shoes and gloves (if needed). The leaders will need to check the quality of the workmanship so that the settlement isn t going to fall down. Refer to The Details for a fuller health & safety outline. If you want to make it a little more difficult, you could add in some of the following: Take items off people at set times e.g. give them an hour and then take away their hammer Hide items around the place you re building in let them scavenge for materials, rather than have everything laid out for them Make it rain hose down the slum after it has been built

5 CHALLENGE 2 The Water Challenge 5 CHALLENGE 2: THE WATER CHALLENGE To help your group understand that 748 million people around the world don t have access to safe, clean water and that 2.5 billion don t have access to adequate sanitation (toilets etc). The challenge will have people walking to a tap some distance away with containers/bottles to collect their water for the weekend. A tap (or water source) about 1 mile away Enough containers for each person to have one small buckets, cups or anything with an open top would work A large container for them to return their water to 1.5 hours maximum Set the teams the task of collecting water from the source. They have to walk together to collect the water and return together. They empty their containers into the large container. Things to talk about and questions to ask Over 500,000 children die every year from diarrhoea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation. That is 1,400 preventable deaths every day. Simply having access to water to wash their hands could cut the risk of diarrhoea almost in half. The average weight of the water that people carry back is 20kg. Many children walk at night to collect water so that they can go to school during the day. This increases their risk of being attacked. If they do it during the day, they cannot get an education. Many women and children in Africa have to walk an average distance of 6km (3.7 miles) to find and collect water. Make sure people are wearing sensible shoes and are able to walk the distance. If they have to cross roads, make sure that there are leaders there to do it with them.to avoid dehydration the collection of water will have to be a sufficient amount. If that is not achieved, the task can be repeated. Refer to The Details for a fuller health & saftely outline. To make it more difficult you could put small holes in some of the buckets/cups Weigh out 20kg the team have to carry this back with them as well as their cup Make the distance 6km (total)

6 CHALLENGE 3 The Crime Challenge 6 CHALLENGE 3: THE CRIME CHALLENGE For the group to gain a sense of the extreme injustice and insecurity that those who live in slums experience every day. Pencil and paper for each family 30 minutes Families must steal and hide one item from another family and then try to find their own stolen items. Process: Families are taken away from the slum. One family member from each family is designated as the thief. Each thief is assigned to steal one item from one other family s home. They are then required to hide this item somewhere else in the slum (or other designated area). One by one, thieves are sent to the slum to steal an item from their assigned family s home and hide it. If a thief finds another family s hidden item, he/she must leave it in place and find another place for the item he/she has stolen. After stealing and hiding an item, the thieves write down the item and family it was stolen from and then go to a separate area, rather than back to their families. The item must be in the family s house, not part of the construction, and must be a complete item (a cup, sock or a bag of rice, etc.) rather than a partial item (some spices taken from a bag or water from a bucket). Once all thieves have completed their mission, the remaining families return to their slum house and have 5 minutes to retrieve the item. Before they are allowed to begin searching, they must identify the missing item (the organiser can check that they are correct by collecting the notes written by the thieves). Once they have successfully identified the missing item, they can begin the search. They must do this without talking to any of the thieves. The thief (or thieves) who successfully steals and hides an item for the duration of the challenge is the winner and that family receives the prize. Things to talk about and questions to ask Slums are often overcrowded and poorly serviced. There may be no streetlights and no police presence. Unemployment is often high, and so for many there can be a sense of hopelessness. In environments like these, there can be a high rate of robberies, muggings and other crime. How would you feel with the constant worry that your belongings may not be in your house when you got home? Make sure that no damage is caused to the slum itself and that the thieves do not place the stolen item in an unsafe place (underneath the slum or on top of anything high up or with unstable foundations). Refer to The Details for a fuller health & safety outline. To make the challenge more difficult you could either: increase the number of items taken, reduce the amount of items to just one to keep the family s guessing, make the 5 min countdown begin before the slum families have identified their missing item.

7 CHALLENGE 4 Destroy the Slum 7 CHALLENGE 4: DESTROY THE SLUM The Slum Dwellers must rebuild after some/ all of the slum is demolished. Tools to dismantle the slums. 2-3 hours (max). Give residents five minutes notice that they must clear their slum houses of their contents, as their slum has been scheduled for clearance. Or during another challenge when the slum, residents are away from the slum (ie water challenge) clear them out yourself. Choose one or more of the homes for demolition. This creates a dilemma for the slum community. Will they offer a place for the homeless to live, assist in rebuilding, or just leave it to the family themselves to deal with? Things to talk about and questions to ask Many slums are built illegally, and the people who live there are never certain they will be allowed to stay even if they have no other place to live. Property developers may wish to make use of the land to build a shopping centre, or higher quality accommodation that can be rented to paying tenants. Sometimes slum upgrading just means that the city authorities want to clear away the slum and force its residents to move elsewhere. How did you feel when you realised your slum had been destroyed? Can you imagine never having a permanent home and living with the knowledge that you could be moved on at any time? If you re planning on using the same materials again make sure to dismantle the slum safely. Breaking wood and glass can lead to injury when rebuilding and also an unsafe environment for the slum to be in. Refer to The Details for a fuller health & safety outline. This task won t be helpful if you are short on materials, as you may end up damaging your only materials beyond repair once you ve dismantled the slum.

8 CHALLENGE 5 Scrap Soccer Challenge 8 CHALLENGE 5: SCRAP SOCCER CHALLENGE A knock-out soccer tournament played with a soccer ball made from scrap. Plastic bags Newspaper String Tape Witches hats minutes Families must make a soccer ball each from scrap materials. Families participate in a knock-out soccer competition to determine the winner of the challenge. The winning family will receive a prize. Things to talk about and questions to ask Most of the toys that children play with in slums are made from scavenged material. In many slum communities education might not be available, or might be unaffordable for poor families. Games of street soccer are one way for children to while away the time. Slum Dwellers should wear footwear during this challenge. Refer to The Details for a fuller H&S outline.

9 CHALLENGE 6 Rich and Poor 9 CHALLENGE 6: RICH AND POOR To highlight the difference between rich and poor and the inequality that exists around so many of the world s slums. The leaders eat bacon sandwiches for breakfast on both days whilst the dwellers are eating rice. Bread rolls, bacon, cooking equipment 20 minutes A group of the slum dwellers (perhaps one per family, depending on number of families and number of leaders) will cook bacon sandwiches for the leaders for breakfast whilst the rest of the group eat their rice and daal meal. Things to talk about and questions to ask How do you feel about cooking a nice meal for your leaders whilst you re eating rice? What would you feel like if this was reality in many areas of your life (money, education etc)? Ensure the young people are supervised when cooking. Wash hands thoroughly before handling food. Refer to The Details for a fuller health & safety outline. If you want, you could randomly select one slum family to also have bacon rolls cooked for them for breakfast making it even more unfair on the rest of the group.

10 CHALLENGE 7 Who Do You Trust: Trafficking Challenge 10 CHALLENGE 7: Who do you trust? Trafficking challenge To make a decision from the promises of an acting aid worker or trafficker as to who to trust. This tries to show something of the reality that people face when given the offer of slavery or genuine offers of work. One leader to act as an aid worker and another to act as a trafficker. 30 minutes maximum One leader acts as the trafficker, the other as an aid worker. They have to promise the slum dwellers things that will lead them to trust them and not the other leader without revealing their true identity. Questions to ask/ things to talk about Some examples of promises you could use: Aid worker: I can take you to a safe environment away from the slum; you can have medical care for both major and minor issues if you need it; you will have food and an opportunity to grow crops; you can go to school and have a safe place to play; you will be provided with safe drinking water on tap; you will have modern toilet cubicles rather than holes in the ground; you will be able to develop life skills to grow up and look after yourselves; you will meet kind and well-meaning westerners. Trafficker: I can enable you to find meaningful work; I can take you to a better place; you will have opportunities to meet generous westerners; you will have secure structures for housing; you will be given food and able to work on a farm to grow crops; you will be kept safe and have people to protect you from outsiders; you will be provided with safe drinking water on tap; you will have modern toilet cubicles rather than holes in the ground; you will have access to modern healthcare if you have issues. Refer to The Details for a fuller health & safety outline. Punishments could be enforced if the family make an incorrect guess (ie, agree to follow the trafficker) for example, money can be taken away from them. On the flip side, if a group successfully agrees to follow the aid worker, they can be rewarded appropriately.

11 CHALLENGE 9 Illness Challenge 11 CHALLENGE 8: ILLNESS CHALLENGE To highlight some of the issues caused by a lack of education and the ability to read and/or write as well as the struggle to get hold of simple medication. Smarties/skittles/a type of sweet where there are lots of different colours. Code cracking sheets (see below). 30 minutes Each different coloured sweet has a code; the teams take it in turns to discover another letter of the code to decide which of their tablets they want to use to help them get better. (Obviously adjust colours depending on which sweets you are using/what s available) Red sweets make it worse. Use code: Green sweets make it better. Use code: Blue/brown/pink/yellow make no difference. Use codes: L L J Code Letters W H B E O F N L L T P R Y M I S J J Questions to ask/ things to talk about What difficulties are you facing? Think about what it would be like trying to get by without being able to read or write- what do you take for granted now that you think you d notice significantly? How difficult did you find it only being able to discover one letter at a time? Lots of children in slums don t have the chance to go to school; social barriers and cultural differences means they are unable to complete their education. As a result, few compete their primary education and many never go to school. Refer to The Details for a fuller health & safety outline. During the challenge, insist that the slum dwellers rule out one of the medicines whether they know for certain or not what the effect of the medicine is. If a team chooses a medicine that makes them worse, take some money from them, claiming it as a doctor s fee to help them get better.

12 CHALLENGE 9 Kidnapped Challenge 12 CHALLENGE 9: KIDNAPPED CHALLENGE The aim is to get an entire team to base without them being captured by the trafficker. To push home the reality that 800,000 people are trafficked per year- traffickers will pick on the most vulnerable, often meaning children and people from slums. If they cannot lure their victim to work for them, they will kidnap them, forcing them to work in horrific conditions, exploited and made to participate in gruelling work. A large open space to play the game 30 minutes Much like the game 40/40: One member of the team is the kidnapped person and acts as home. A member of an opposing team is it and is in charge of guarding home. The rest of the first team are scattered around the open space. When the game starts, they all have to reach home without being caught by it. If the entire team can gather at home without being caught by it, then the kidnapped member is set free. Questions to ask and things to talk about Talk about what it would be like living in fear of you or someone else in your family being kidnapped. What are the daily realities of this; would you be able to leave your home alone? Would you worry if you didn t see a friend for a day? What extra precautions would you need to take at night? Slum dwellers should wear footwear for this activity. Refer to The Details for a fuller health & safety outline. This can be made more difficult by including more members of the opposing team, i.e. having more its. Place a time limit on the activity- if the team doesn t have all its members at home when time is up, they have lost and their family member is still kidnapped. Take some slum money from this team as a ransom for their family member.

13 CHALLENGE 10 Getting Bored 13 CHALLENGE 10: Getting bored To give a space of time during which nothing is planned for the slum dwellers. This will highlight to the slum dwellers the boredom that faces many people around the world; with no access to education, no jobs and few toys to play with, children in slums will often spend large amounts of time with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Nothing As long as you want- this can be a short space of time or a longer period of time over the weekend depending on how your group would cope, how they would respond and what else you ve got planned. Leave the slum dwellers to their own devices for the duration of the challenge. Questions to ask during the activity How does it feel having nothing to do? How would you cope if this was a daily reality for you? Do you ever have to occupy yourself for a period of time like this? What do you have in your life to distract you from being bored? (phones, computers, mp3s, social media, TV ) Refer to The Details for a fuller health & safety outline. If needed you could give the young people suggestions of things to do such as improve their slum, play with their scrap football (if that challenge has already been completed), play another game between themselves that doesn t require any additional resources.

14 CHALLENGE 11 Slum Lords 14 CHALLENGE 11: SLUM LORDS (1/2) Slum Lords (also called Mafia, Assassin, Werewolf or Village) is a group role playing game of strategy, survival, and the ability to spot a fraud. The imaginary setting is a slum township where the local townspeople and Slum Lords are in an allout battle for survival. This game will somewhat reflect the corruption of power found within many slums; where police control is low, crime rate is high and many people are taken advantage of. A deck of cards to determine what role people will play in the game. Depending on the amount of people involved, the game can last between 15 minutes and an hour. Select a moderator (story-teller/narrator). It is best if this person is someone who knows the rules and has played the game before. Split up a deck of cards so that there is one card for each person playing (minus 1 for the moderator). In the deck you will need one King, who will be the detective. One Queen, who will be the Doctor/nurse. Choose a suit (such as Clubs) to be the Slum Lords, there should be 1 Slum Lord per 3 villagers (so a 1 Club for every 3 cards). Put those three types in the deck, along with enough regular cards for everyone else (except for the moderator). Shuffle the cards and have each player take one card and look at it without showing it to anyone else. The card that is picked is the character that that person plays. When everyone has taken and looked at their cards, the moderator will begin the game. Play the game through day and night rounds (as described below) until either the Slum Lords have been eliminated, or the number of Slum Lords and townspeople are equal (in this case, the mafia have complete control over the voting). The game begins with a day cycle, in which the Slum Lords do not yet know who the other Slum Lords are. Have the moderator begin the night cycle by telling everyone to close their eyes and put their heads down. When everyone is asleep, the moderator should instruct the Slum Lords to wake up and choose a victim. The people who have the Slum Lord cards will open their eyes and decide amongst themselves (as quietly as possible) who they want to kill. They inform the moderator of who their victim is (by pointing to him or her) and the moderator will then tell the Slum Lords to go back to sleep. The moderator will then instruct the detective to wake up. The detective will then point out one person that they suspect to be a Slum Lord and the moderator will silently indicate (through a thumbs-up or thumbs-down) whether or not that that person is indeed one. The moderator will then instruct the detective to return to sleep. It is up to the detective to convince the townspeople the next day who the Slum Llord is. (However pointing the finger may result in the detective becoming the Slum Lord s next target, or indeed being convicted by the townspeople as a Slum Lord himself.) The doctor will then be instructed to wake up and choose a person to save. The doctor will then (silently) point to one person to save. He/she could also choose to save himself (or herself). If the person chosen to be killed by the Slum Lords was saved, they will survive the night. Otherwise,

15 CHALLENGE 11 Slum Lords 15 CHALLENGE 11: SLUM LORDS (1/2) nothing will happen to the person saved and the person killed will die. (If the doctor dies, the townspeople can no longer be saved from the Slum Lords.) The moderator will then instruct everyone to wake up except the person who was killed--unless the doctor has accurately predicted who the Slum Lords attempted to kill, in which case that person has been saved. If the person was killed, the moderator makes up a story about who was killed, and how, without revealing who the killer(s) were. If the person was saved, the moderator explains how they were injured, found, and saved. (Also without revealing any information about who the killer(s) or the nurse/ doctor are). Hold discussions. The townspeople (this includes the detective, the doctor and Mafia) should discuss recent events. The dead tell no tales, so whoever gets killed in the game must remain silent for the remainder of the game. Nobody may show their cards, although they can try to convince others that they are a certain role. Once the discussion has evolved to a point where somebody has a suspicion, play proceeds to accusations. Make accusations. At this point, someone may make an accusation against another player stating that they think that the other person is a Slum Lord. Once an accusation has been made, it must be seconded by another player in order for the accusation to be taken to a vote. When someone has been accused and seconded, the accuser must explain the reasoning behind the accusation. Then other players may speak if they believe that the accusation is just. Defend the accused. At this point, anyone who chooses to may defend the accused and the accused then has the right to defend him or herself and explain why there is no way that he or she could possibly be a Slum Lord. This can take place in a trial-like setting, where the accused talks about a fictional alibi and often accuses other players in his or her stead. This is a great opportunity to get creative with the defense. Have a vote. The moderator now asks who thinks that the accused is guilty and a vote is taken. This can be done by a show of hands or an anonymous ballot. Apply the verdict. If a majority of the voting players vote guilty, the accused shows his or her card and is now considered killed. If no cards were used, the accused may simply state whether or not they were a Slum Lord. If there is not a majority vote of guilty, the accusations begin again. The day round continues until someone has been declared guilty and removed from the game, and the night round begins again. The remaining townspeople and/or slum lords win a prize for their slum families. Refer to The Details for a fuller health & safety outline. Making it harder: You can increase or decrease the amount of Slum Lords, doctor(s) and detectives. You could also make sure that no one shows their card or reveals their true identity when they die. No cards? The moderator can pick out the mafia members, sheriffs, etc., by him/herself by taping them on the head when everyone is asleep. This is good if the moderator knows the playing level of the players, and can make a more balanced game. 1 Slum Lord per family: By making one member of each slum family a Slum Lord, it will add more competition as to who gets the prize at the end.

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