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Borderline boardgames
Start date: Sep 1, 2014, End date: Mar 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The idea for this project arose first and foremost from the financial difficulties that have permeated much of Europe for several years. The The idea for this project arose first and foremost from the financial difficulties that have permeated much of Europe for several years. The last few years have witnessed a big part of the burden of austerity being heaped onto the shoulders of the continent’s young people. We, the project group, felt there was a need to look into this and see if we, in our professions, could contribute towards something positive. This project was based on a couple of identified needs that we observed in the various participating countries. First, we saw a need for more effective and innovative instruments to encourage young people to become more aware and educated on how to manage one’s private economy. To become financially literate, to put it differently. This need was in large part based on the financial difficulties much of Europe has been going through over the last several years, and which persists still. Second, we found it to be an ongoing need to have more competence and understanding of conflict management among young people. We see clear links between the macro- and the micro level on this topic. Lastly, we had an idea of combining these two areas to attempt to provide concrete tools, especially to group of young people with fewer opportunities, to deal more constructively with troubling situations of financial difficulty without resorting to conflict. Communication about the initial ideas started between a few of the partners who knew each other well from a long list of previous collaborations. The project rationale and a couple of concrete ideas were then shared down the network of acquainted trainers, youth workers and organisations. All partners have been involved in this project based on their special competence or experience related to one or both of the concrete tools the project group wanted to develop. The centrepiece of this project has been to develop and produce two educational and interactive board games, to address financial literacy and conflict management - “Real Ideal” and “Mission Z”, respectively. The project has been undertaken with 10 formal partners, with one external partner that has also been involved throughout the whole project - including holding a crucial role in the actual production of all the game pieces for what has become “Real Ideal” and “Mission Z”. It was an important criterion for us that all the involved organisations, companies and informal groups are involved as directly as possible in field youth work or local community building. The results include that each partner now is in possession of 1 complete set of “Mission Z” and 4 complete sets of “Real Ideal”, attractively designed and formed in multipurpose materials. All game pieces have been handmade in a village in Portugal, and has thus created some employment during the project period, as well as improved the capacity of the same village and its people to produce more output of a similar sort in the future. Our testing of the concepts for both games has been rigorous. In total we have tested the two games with 653 participants who have all provided us with written feedback. This has enabled us to modify the games during the project period and adjust for input offered to us by the actual target group for both games, the young people themselves. The feedback from these participants has been overwhelmingly positive, across the board. This is the main thing for us, and gives us a feeling of having contributed well to the field of youth work and non-formal learning methods. The outputs of this project has also reached other circles, such as banks and universities that are keen on utilising these games in their education of financial literacy and conflict management, respectively. Some concrete partnerships along these lines have already been formalised. For more, and updated information also after the project’s end, we invite the reader to visit our website: http://bb-games.eu
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