UNFAIRGROUND Role Play (IMI-M3-01-EN)

• To explain conflicts
• To demonstrate how conflicts can be counterproductive
• To motivate participants, reflect on their own experience with discrimination and discrimination-based conflicts
• То urge reflection on one’s own experience with diversity

• Students
• Adolescent youth
• Educators, trainers, councillors, youth workers
• Any citizen

The UNFAIRGROUND Game is an interactive simulation developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that aims to raise awareness about the challenges of global inequality. The approach is used here to demonstrate how conflicts can arise when existing differences are exploited to spread misinformation.

Energizer (15 minutes)

The facilitator asks the participants to stand up and gather together in a circle. Then s/he names a quality – e.g. people with red hair – and asks those who possess it to step away from the circle. Then he names anther quality – e.g. age below 20 – and asks those of the remaining participants who possess this quality to step out of the circle again, and so on. The exercise continues with up to 10 qualities and until very few participants remain in the initial circle.

Examples of qualities for the energizer:

• Like coffee
• Have a sibling
• Blue/brown eyes
• Vegetarian
• Have birthday in spring/summer/winter/autumn
• Write with the left hand, etc.
• Wearing jeans

The activity ends with a short reflection and discussion about differences a d diversity among people and prepares the participants for the real activity.

Introduction (10 minutes)

The facilitator gathers together the participants in the circle again and gives each one a card with a role to play. The roles are conflicting and the role cards are prepared in advance (Examples of them can be found in Appendix 1). The participants read the cards and keep their roles secret but prepare to perform the characteristics that are assigned to their roles.

Role Play (20 minutes)  

The facilitator assigns a common task for the group of participants – for example to build a structure with office materials or write a short story depicting the city where the training is held. Any common task will do. The goal is to complete the task while the participants act the roles they were given.

The result is likely to be unsuccessful because the roles are bound to create personal clashes and disagreeable atmosphere.

Debriefing (10 minutes)

The facilitator asks the participants to reveal their roles. The group reflects together why the common task was not achieved and what strategies they could follow to come out with a different result.

• Flipchart or in-class screen – for sketching the rules of the activity
• Chairs – moveable so that they can be rearranged
• Role cards (Appendix1)
• Materials for a common task – tape, boxes of candies, ropes, pens, notepads, etc. depending on the task to be assigned to the team
• Note-pads and pens/pencils

• Guidance
• Role-play/simulation
• Reflection
• Discussion

• Start the activity with a 5-munute introduction, explaining the mode of conduct within the group – respect, tolerance, listening without interruption

Youth Exchange “Representation matters” (2021), Retrieved from https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/otlas-partner-finding/download/8976/Representation%20Matters%20-%20Infopack%20APV.pdf

Yes, please download it from here.