Toolbox — For Training and Youth Work
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Simulation Exercise, Exercise
This exercise, based on John Rawls's famous thought experiment "Veil of ignorance", is a simple and interesting tool for introducing young people to complex issues such as human, civil and political rights, democracy, rule of law, etc.
To help participants understand the notion of discrimination and significance of human/civil rights.
Once the participants are divided into smaller groups, each of them draws out a piece of paper from one or more boxes. A box represents position in society or a feature that can be the basis for discrimination. Thus we have boxes of gender, social status, intelligence, nationality. The trainer may increase or decrease the number of boxes depending on the goal and topic of the exercise. It is even possible to have only one box (e.g. gender box if the exercise is focused on the gender equality issue).
Participants then throw a dice and the winner gets the task to build a society bearing in mind only interests of the groups pulled out of the box. If it happens that the score is tied, the participants with highest score work together on designing a hypothetical society. Scheduled time for this activity is 15 minutes, after which participants begin a discussion about the position of the groups that would be discriminated in such society.
In the second part of this exercise participants re-draw slips of paper out of the boxes, but this time covered with a "veil of ignorance". The trainer has a task to symbolically represent the "veil of ignorance" by changing lighting conditions or in another way. Participants keep slips drawn from boxes, but cannot see them until the end of the second part of the exercise. In this way, participants know nothing about their nationality, religion or social status and cannot defend the interests of any particular group of people. On the other hand, participants have a task to provide the best possible position for groups drawn from the boxes. All participants work together on this task.
The last part of the exercise is scheduled for discussion.
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http://toolbox.salto-youth.net/1286
This tool is for
Up to 20 participants divided in groups of four or five.
and addresses
Social Inclusion, Anti-Racism, Conflict Management, Gender issues
It is recommended for use in:
Action 1.3 (Youth democracy projects)
Action 1.2 (Youth Initiatives)
Materials needed:
slips of paper, boxes, dices, flipchart, markers
Duration:
90 min (3 x 30 min)
The tool was created by
Nikola Stojković
in the context of
Inspired by the work of John Rawls
The tool was published to the Toolbox by
Nikola Stojkovic (on 2 June 2011)
and last modified
30 September 2011
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