This year Sphere 17 Kilbarrack took part in the Trocaire ‘Game Changers’ programme. The programme ran from January to May, involving 4 young people aged 10-12 who worked on creating a game that would make climate justice fun! At the end of the programme, the game was submitted as part of Trocaire’s Game Changers nationwide competition.
About our game:
The young people created a board game called Petals of Change. Players are given a flower and their incentive is to fill their flower with petals, as they move around the board. Each tile has a different instruction, for example, move forward 2 spaces or lose a turn etc. There is a tax box for the petals you lose, and a tile that lets you win the tax pot. There are also ‘Chance’ and ‘Challenge’ cards which are all based on climate justice – For example one chance card is ‘You’ve polluted the local water source – lose 2 petals’ and one challenge card is ‘what do the 3 R’s stand for?’. The first player to collect all their petals, wins! The game plays on until all players fill their flowers.
Awards:
Trocaire run an annual game changers competition and this was Sphere17’s first time taking part so we we’re delighted to attend the final round in person, in the Helix in DCU. 214 games were submitted in total, and we placed in the top 6 of the shortlisted games. Throughout the day, people were encouraged to play each others games and vote on the best one’s and the final scores would be included in the presentation.
We are happy to say we came 3rd place in our category and our young people are so proud! They are now encouraging other young people to play and take part in learning about climate justice in a fun and interactive way.
We can’t wait for next year
