After about 18 months of incredibly hard work, we are so pleased to announce that YTF’s game for peace, PeaceOpoly, is now live and playable online and on Facebook.
PeaceOpoly is an interactive, online social strategy game designed to educate and engage youth in the democratic process while immersing them in real life situations where they have to develop civic mindsets. The multi-player game allows each player to start up, build and develop their own town, raising it from a basic village to a thriving metropolis as they compete with other players who are building their own respective towns. The aim of the game is to gain ultimate political power as president. However, this can only be attained by first developing your town to unlock new levels, joining a political party, and making friends and alliances so as to earn the votes of fellow players.
If a player is successful in developing her town, her political career will thrive as she rises through the ranks from a simple citizen, to youth leader, community leader and eventually to governor and president. When she gets to governor status during game play, she is then qualified to run in her party’s primaries, where the winner is selected to run for the overall game president. In the game, presidential elections are held every month while the party primaries are held every fortnight before the main elections.
YTF’s youth beneficiaries in Kenya and Nigeria were involved in designing the storyboard and testing the game. We’re so proud of the way our youth step out to promote the values of YTF as they put their new skills and natural talents to work for the good of their community.
In our civic education work with young people over the years we have found two things to hold true:
- If youth are socially integrated, then they will be less susceptible to manipulation by political elites, and
- If youth have the skills and forums to discuss difficult issues, then they will be less likely to use violence to solve problems.
YTF offers workshops and training so that youth can develop these skills and apply them during community dialogues as opposed to resorting to violence. Players in PeaceOpoly have an opportunity to build teams and support other players from different ethnic communities. This aids understanding and reduces young people’s susceptibility to negative ethnic stereotypes and misinformation often handed to them by political elites.
PeaceOpoly builds on YTF’s years of teaching young people about their civic rights and responsibilities and how technology can help them in documenting and distributing information about events leading up to or following elections.
