(not) the easy way Themes : activism, discrimination, social exclusion, general human rights Age : 16-18 Group : 15-25 Type of activity : rĂ´le play, sketch, discussion, diffusion of a video, stories Time : 100 minutes Overview : Firstly children consider being someone else in hard situation which provokes empathy. Secondly they are given a situation and have to find a solution about it. They have to play the problem and the solution in front of the group. Afterwards we encourage discussion about topics about passive citizenship and its consequences and we show a video explaining the definition of diffusion of responsability / bystander effect. We conclude with stories of active young people who made a diffence in their community. Objective : to promote empathy with other who are different. To raise awareness about the inequality of opportunities in our society. To make teenager understand they can actually take meaningful actions. Material : pen, markers, papers, First part : Role cards, list of questions, Second part : list of situations and organizations to contact. Third part : video projector, video, pictures and stories of young activits Preparation : Adapt the roles, situations and length of the activity to your group Create 4 different characters and their situations in order to create 4 groups and create the same number of cards as students. Prepare cards with the situations. Use symboles on the role cards to divide each group. Prepare a list of organizations to contact for each situation, according to your city. Examples of roles :
A 17 years old homosexual boy bullied at school A 17 years old migrant from Mali who has leaved in Italy for 3 years. A woman mother of 3 children physically abused by her husband A homeless person living in the street for 6 months Instructions : 1) Introduce the activity. 2) Give the children a role card. Ask them to close their eyes, to breathe deeply and start asking question :
• • • • • • • • •
What does your everyday life look like ? What is the first thing you think of in the morning ? Are you afraid for the future ? Can you invite your friends for diner ? Do you feel accepted by the society ? Can you fall in love with the person of your choice ? Do you feel safe ? Do you feel alone Do you feel equal to the other members of the society you live in ?
This part lasts around 10 minutes.
3) Tell them to open their eyes, and to stand up. Tell them to divide them by groups according to the symbol on the card. Ask them to step out their roles by shaking. 4) Each groups is given a situation and 20 minutes to prepare a skectch including the problem and the solution they found. Examples of situations : 1) Homeless. Homeless person living in the street ignored by most of the people everyday.
2) Gay classmate One of your classmates is homosexual and bullied by a group of classmates and the others don't react. 3) Abused women You've heard that your cousin has been physically abused by her husband. They have 3 children. What can you do ? 4) Migrant One of your refugee classmates from Syria is threatened to be sent back to his / her country. He / she has been here for 3 years. Is there something you can do?
5) They perform the scene and after each scene, we open the discussion with the 3 following questions : 1) What happened ? 2) What was the solution ? Who did it ? 3) Is there any other solution ? Who could have acted ? The entire group answers the questions.
6) After the presentation of all the scenes, we open the final discussion, with the following questions :
1) 2) 3) 4)
How did you feel ? What were the similarities between the situations ? What would be the easy way ? What would be the hard way ? Have you ever found yourself in similiar situation? Do people usually act ?
5) What would be the easy way ? What happens when people take the easy way ? 6) Do you think it's important to speak up ? 7) Could it make a difference ? 8) Were you ever told you were too young to do something ? Do you think it's true ?
7) Give them a list of organizations to contact for each situation and play a video about the diffusion of social responsability (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy6eUTLzcU4) and ask them if they ever noticed this phenomenon. 8) Finish with stories about young activists who chose the hard way to make a difference in their community. Examples : – Malala – School in Belgium In Belgium, a Armenian family who had been in Belgium for 8 years was threatened to be expulsed and to go back to Armenia, to a very dangerous part of the country at the border with Azerbaidjan. The classmates of the daughter of the family started writing a letter to the governement to say that it was against the human rights. They also started an online petition and gathered 6000 signatures. Then the school organized a session about the situation of the family, and the status of refugees so more people wanted to participate and defend the rights of the family. They gathered of the main square of the village to make some noise organize a football tournament and a march. – Situation in Slovakia In 2017 17 year old high school students Karolina Farska and David Straka decided take action. It was after one of corruption cases of Slovak government was covered up. They became fed up with the ignorance of our government and decided to act and not just choose the easy way. They made an event for Anticorruption protest in Bratislava on facebook and didnt except many people to come... 10 000 people arrived. Earlier this year a a journalist was shot in his house. He was working on article that exposed Italian Mafia business in east of Slovakia. There were links found between the mafia family and leading party in Slovakia. These two started movement that organised more protests for Decent Slovakia. There were protest in many cities in Slovakia and abroad. More than 100 000 people came every Friday, until the prime minister and minister of interior resigned. 9) Leave them with a punching quote. Example :
How to measure our outcome : After the session we give out questionnaires to participants on how much they liked it ; etc ; on a tablet Same thing one month later. We ask the teacher to ask the children to fill it.