Section-3
Note for Facilitator:
Keep aim and required connection in mind as you progress through the section.
Aim: To simulate a chaotic situation where basic needs are being met and not being met and the feelings associated with their fulfilment and their absence.
Required Connection: Participants will identify the complex emotions involved with the presence/absence of basic needs.
Exercise
people - shelter - storm
Divide the group into small groups: 3 players to a group.
If you don’t have the right amount of students to divide evenly, the Facilitator may have to play.
Explain that within each group there will be 2 players who form a shelter, while the other player becomes the person living in the shelter.
A shelter is formed by two players facing each other, arms extended high placing their palms flat against each other to create a “roof”.
The person living in the shelter should duck underneath.
Explain that you are going to call out three words:
- When you call out PEOPLE! the people must leave their shelters and run to a different one while the shelters stay in place. Practice this a few times.
- When you call out SHELTER! the shelters must break apart and find a new person to build a shelter over. Practice this a few times, adding in the PEOPLE! command as well.
- When you call out SHELTER! the shelters must break apart and find a new person to build a shelter over. Practice this a few times, adding in the PEOPLE! command as well.
Continue playing the game, alternating between calling out PEOPLE! SHELTER! or STORM!
Make the game competitive by having the Caller be a participant.
When STORM! is called, the Caller joins the game and tries to find a group of 3. Whoever is left out becomes the new Caller.
A number of participants may find themselves without a group after 5 seconds. This will be addressed in the following discussion.
GROUP DISCUSSION
Initial questions after exercise:
What did you experience in that exercise?
Possible answers: It got crazy / competitive etc.
Why?
Answers: Desperate / Panic / Fear
How did it feel to be excluded? With no shelter?
How did it feel to have shelter?
Possible answers: safe, defensive, pressure to stay safe etc.
What was it like to be in the storm?
Finish the conversation by asking participants: What are the basic needs for survival?
What are the basic human rights?
Read the quote below:
'Human rights are like armour: they protect you; they are like rules, because they tell you how you can behave; and they are like judges, because you can appeal to them. They are abstract—like emotions, and like emotions, they belong to everyone and they exist no matter what happens. They are like nature because they can be violated; and like the spirit because they cannot be destroyed. Like time, they treat us all the same way — rich and old, young and old, white and black, tall and short. They offer us respect, and they charge us to treat others with respect. Like goodness, truth and justice, we disagree about their definition, but we recognize them when we see them.’
Compass - A manual on Human Rights Education for Young People - 2002
GROUP DISCUSSION
Question: What is the quote saying?