Themes: Social Rights
Objectives
- To raise awareness about inequality of opportunity
- To develop imagination and critical thinking
- To foster empathy with others who are less fortunate
Duration and Planning
- 15 minutes : Explanation of the Method
- 30 minutes : Role Play
- 30 minutes : Debriefing
Materials
- Flipchart
- Board Markers
- Role Cards
- Statement Card for Facilitators
Recommended Method
The facilitator explains the method that the participants are not allowed to share their role cards with the other participants and they should act concerning to the statements will be read related with the role cards. Then the facilitator provides the role cards to the participants and asks them to keep it to themselves and not to show it anyone else.
For 5 minutes, the facilitator asks the participants to get into the role by asking questions to facilitate the process of reflecting the role of participants to themselves and build up a picture of themselves and their lives in the role :
- What was your childhood like? What sort of house did you live in? What kind of games did you play? What sort of work did your parents do?
- What is your everyday life like now? Where do you socialise? What do you do in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening?
- What sort of lifestyle do you have? Where do you live? How much money do you earn each month? What do you do in your leisure time? What you do in your holidays?
- What excites you and what are you afraid of?
Afterwards, the facilitator asks participants to form a line up beside each other like on a starting line. The facilitator tell participants that s/he will read out a list of situations or events and every time they can answer “Yes” to the statement, they should take a step forward. Otherwise, they should stay stay where they are and not move.
The facilitator starts to read the statements one by one(Please consult the statement list below). During this process, the facilitator says that the participants are not allowed to open their eyes. Due to this reason, the space should be comfortable for participants to go through a line as much as possible. After reading the last statement, the facilitator tells participants to open their eyes and look around to take a note of the others position. During that process, the facilitator asks participants to reveal their roles randomly in case that they want to share how they feel and what do they think about the differences of the spaces between each other. During this role revealing process, the participants are allowed to talk about their feelings, their imaginations and why they have stepped forward in particular situation or not by giving examples from the statements.
After the participants do not want to share anymore, the facilitator asks participants to line up again and puts a line with paper tape and tells the participants that when they pass over to the other side, they will forget about the roles and they will come back to their own lives.
During the debriefing, you can use the following questions to discuss the feelings and experiences of the participants:
- 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?
- Does the exercise mirror society in some way? How?
- Which human rights are at stake for each of the roles? Could anyone say that their human rights were not being respected or that they did not have access to them?
- What first steps could be taken to address the inequalities in society?
After the finalization of the debriefing, the facilitator provides information concerning to the inequalities by referring to the report as well as the social welfare structures to create a follow-up link with the next session.
Facilitators Note
If you do this activity outdoors, make sure that the participants can hear you, especially if you are doing it with a large group! You may need to use your co-facilitators to relay the statements. In the imagining phase at the beginning, it is possible that some participants may say that they know little about the life of the person they have to role-play. Tell them, this does not matter especially, and that they should use their imagination and to do it as best they can. The power of this activity lies in the impact of actually seeing the distance increasing between the participants, especially at the end when there should be a big distance between those that stepped forward often and those who did not. To enhance the impact, it is important that you adjust the roles to reflect the realities of the participants’ own lives. As you do so, be sure you adapt the roles so that only a minimum of people can take steps forward (i.e. can answer “yes”). This also applies if you have a large group and have to devise more roles.
During the debriefing and evaluation it is important to explore how participants knew about the character whose role they had to play. Was it through personal experience or through other sources of information (news, books, and jokes?) Are they sure the information and the images they have of the characters are reliable? In this way you can introduce how stereotypes and prejudice work. This activity is particularly relevant to making links between the different generations of rights (civil/political and social/economic/cultural rights) and the access to them. The problems of poverty and social exclusion are not only a problem of formal rights – although the latter also exists for refugees and asylum-seekers for example. The problem is very often a matter of effective access to those rights.
Role Cards
| You are an unemployed single mother. | You are the president of a party-political youth organisation (whose “mother” party is now in power). | You are the daughter of the local bank manager. Youstudy economics at university. |
| You are the 19-year-old son of a farmer in a remote village in the mountains. | You are the son of a Chinese immigrant who runs a successful fast food business. | You are an illegal immigrant from Mali. |
| You are a homeless young man, 27 years old. | You are a soldier in army, doing compulsory militaryservice. | You are the daughter of the American ambassador to the country where you are now living. |
| You are the owner of a successful import-export company. | You are an Arab Muslim girl living with your parents who are devoutly religious people. | You are a 24-year-old refugee from Afghanistan. |
| You are a 17-year-old Roma (Gypsy) girl who never finished primary school. | You are a retired worker from a factory that makesshoes. | You are a disabled young man who can only move in a wheelchair. |
| You are an HIV positive, middle-aged prostitute. | You are a 22-year-old lesbian. | You are the girlfriend of a young artist who is addicted to heroin. |
| You are an unemployed university graduate waiting for the first opportunity to work. | You are a fashion model of African origin. | You are 50 year old refugee from Syria. |
Situations and events
Read the following situations out aloud. Allow time after reading out each situation for participants to step forward and also to look to see how far they have moved relative to each other:
• You have never encountered any serious financial difficulty.
• You have decent housing with a telephone and television.
• You feel your language, religion and culture are respected in the society where you live.
• You feel that your opinion on social and political issues matters and your views are listened to.
• Other people consult you about different issues.
• You are not afraid of being stopped by the police.
• You know where to turn for advice and help if you need it.
• You have never felt discriminated against because of your origin.
• You have adequate social and medical protection for your needs.
• You can go away on holiday once a year.
• You can invite friends for dinner at home.
• You have an interesting life and you are positive about your future.
• You feel you can study and follow the profession of your choice.
• You are not afraid of being harassed or attacked in the streets, or in the media.
• You can vote in national and local elections.
• You can celebrate the most important religious festivals with your relatives and close friends.
• You can participate in an international seminar abroad.
• You can go to the cinema or the theatre at least once a week.
• You are not afraid for the future of your children.
• You can buy new clothes at least once every three months.
• You can fall in love with the person of your choice.
• You feel that your competence is appreciated and respected in the society where you live.
• You can use and benefit from the Internet.
• You are not afraid of the consequences of climate change.
• You are free to use any site on the Internet without fear of censorship.
Additional Information and Readings
1.EYCB – Compass – Take a Step Forward
