Goal
As we often do in the methodology of Global Education we challenge our knowledge in this method with facts from the real World and try to draw our conclusions. It is a rather simple game with a strong effect on the participants. It can be used in simpler or more difficult forms for various participants, e.g. ranging from the age from around 10 to senior citizens. The World Games is a basic method which is used already for many years. Still it never gets boring...
Steps
1) Population Write the continents on white paper and spread the paper on the floor in the room.
Give the group the following task: "Imagine, you are the whole population of the World. Please divide amongst the continents, how you think the division would be according to the real percentage in todays World."
After the participants placed themeselves in the room go through it and correct it according to the real numbers. Depending on the the group, you could also ask some deeping questions such as "which is the largest country according to population on this continent?".
2) Economy/ Wealth
We share the World`s Wealth according to the GDP amongst the continents in this phase. We are aware, that neither GDP is the perfect indicator nor that the allocation of wealth within a continent or a certain society is taken into consideration in this phase. Still it gives a quite clear overview, that allows further discussions.
Take the same number of something, as you have participants in the room (You can take anything you want, and if you have nothing, you can just rip a piece of paper in the number of pieces you need). Then go from continent to continent and ask beforehand, what the participants expect to receive. A deepening question here could be such as "what does your continent produce for the others?". Pretty quick the unfair allocation of wealth in the world gets quite obvious and North America and Europe receive much more than their fair share (considering that one piece of wealth per one participant would be a fair share).
3) Discussion In case the participants are still standing, ask them to sit down for the debriefing discussion. Guiding questions for the discussions could be: "How fair is the distributive justice according to the numbers you just experience?" "Why is it so?" "What can be changed on the macro level?"
Reflection
The transfer for the lives of the participants is the question, which measures they could take to make this relations between our countries and the rest of the World somehow fairer. There are different options and if you ask an option questions the participants will come up with ideas. Some ideas might be more likely to be set into reality than others and this might differ from the social, regional, national frame you work in.
References
- Template at EPIZ Berlin: The description is in german language, but the tables with the numbers are obvious, no matter what language you speak.
