Games for social good are here to change the world!

There have been many interesting projects that we have come across and many more that we have yet to uncover. However, from the work that we’ve been doing so far – speaking to people, organisations, Googling, Tweeting, LinkingIn and so much more – there has been an emerging trend that is really fascinating & gaining momentum.

One of the methods that we’d like to highlight is related to the booming gaming industry that is growing and making billions of pounds in profit, whilst becoming more and more sophisticated – related because it uses similar mechanics but different because these games have a social purpose. We’d like to introduce you to the exciting world of ‘games for social good’.

© The Young Foundation

Transforming Youth Engagement – submitted by Projecto Transformers

Organisation: Projecto Transformers

Website: http://www.projectotransformers.org/

The challenge and solution: Lack of youth engagement in social activities (by engagement we mean not only the extent to which someone is committed to be a changemaker, but the extent to which someone create bonds with his/her community and other communities around that one). In Portugal, where we are based, according to the latest statistics, approximately 9 in every 10 young people are not engaged in any kind of volunteering activities.

The solution: Some people say that the majority of young people are not engaged in social activities because they are indifferent or apathetic. For us, that’s not the case. Our belief and the main premise of Transformers Project is that the reason behind youth unengagement is not indiferrence, but the fact that most of us, young people, had not found, yet, a personal and original way of making that difference! So we created a volunteering program that connects young people in a really diverse set of institutions (schools, prisons, hospitals, NGOs, centers for the visually impaired and social residential facilities) to young talented guys and girls that volunteer to be their mentors for at least 9 months and teach them the sports and forms of art they are passionate about, for free, once a week.

http://vimeo.com/34234351

Somos Plan Portugal – Projecto Transformers documentation of the project in Lisbon, Portugal.

Edgeryders – submitted by Edgeryders

Organisation: Edgeryders

Website: http://edgeryders.ppa.coe.int

Young Europeans are having trouble completing their transition towards full independence. The problem bites deeper here, because our social model is based on the status of full-time, long term employee, that unlocks important social and economic rights (in France for example, if you don’t work you have no right to health care). This generates tensions, because it forces young people to fight for this status at all costs, even if it got very difficult to obtain and even if many of them would like to explore different paths. Result: 20% of 15-34 years old, in Europe, are not in employment, education or training. It is not even a matter of being young anymore: young people are in the line of fire, but citizens of all ages are losing autonomy.

CC - Image courtesy of zamSpielen #6 from Flickr