Take a Step Forward if You Can!

Take a Step Forward if You Can!
Main Topic
Empowerment and Inclusion – Diversity
Additional Topic(s)
Solidarity - Social Activities
Duration
30-60 minutes
Implementation Mode
Indoor F2F
Goal(s)
● To acknowledge and reflect on different concepts of community, connections within, and diversity among people.


Expected Results

● To embrace the diversity in the community.

● To gain understandings of different perspectives
Overview of Activity
A simple but powerful role play activity to encourage reflection about inequalities in our societies. Role cards (see Notes) are given out to participants who are invited to imagine living the life of the role on their card. A facilitator reads out various situations and events (see Notes) to the participants and they take a step forward if they think their role can relate.
Description of Activity
1. Transfer the roles (specified below in Notes) onto individual cards or pieces of paper. Some genders are not revealed intentionally in order to let it be decided by the cardholder before the game starts. Place cards in a hat or other receptacle in order to allow participants to randomly pick a role. The participants should not show their roles to others.



2. Instruct participants to take a few moments to familiarize themselves with their role and to imagine how life would be in their role. This should be done independently and in a silent environment.

The facilitator may ask the following questions to ease the imagination:

● What was your childhood like?

● What is your everyday life like now?

● Where do you socialise?

● What sort of lifestyle do you have?

● Where do you live?

● What do you do in your leisure time?

● What do you do in your holidays?

● What excites you and what are you afraid of?



3. Ask everyone to remain silent and to line up beside each other. Tell them that you are going to read out some situations and events (see Notes). Those who say “yes” to the questions should take a step forward and those who say “no” should stay where they are. Take a pause between the statements to allow participants to reflect and to take note of their position relative to others.



4. At the end of reading out the situations and events, ask everyone to take note of people's positions.



5. Now debrief and evaluate by asking the following questions in order to instigate discussion:

● How did people feel stepping forward - or not?

● For those who stepped forward often, at what point did they begin to notice that others were not moving as fast as they were?

● Did anyone feel that there were moments when their basic human rights were being ignored?

● Can people guess each other's roles? (Let people reveal their roles during this part of the discussion)

● How easy or difficult was it to play the different roles?

● How did they imagine what the person they were playing was like?

● What first steps could be taken to address the inequalities in society?

Sources & Additional Materials
● Role cards, pen, sheets of paper, hat (if possible).
Additional Notes
Adapted from the activity “Take a step Forward” in “Compass: Manual for Human Rights Education with Young People”.
"https://www.coe.int/en/web/compass/take-a-step-forward">https://www.coe.int/en/web/compass/take-a-step-forward

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