This educational and participatory project uses an innovative educational tool – board games to involve and educate young people in BiH about gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, in the context of civic and democratic engagement within various local communities and in other spheres of public-policy making.
This project targets participants across Bosnia and Herzegovina, and its impact is further widened through a teaching guide and toolkit to affect needed changes, in both formal and non-formal educational settings.
Game Changers brought together 12 young individuals from across Bosnia and Herzegovina to design and develop three innovative board games addressing critical social issues. The games focused on topics such as gender inequalities, occupational segregation, gender wage gaps, domestic violence, public gender-based discrimination, and the underrepresentation of women in political and economic decision-making. The project also tackled broader themes of democratic values and media literacy, with an emphasis on empowering women and girls.
The board games were carefully designed, printed, and tested in alpha-testing sessions conducted by participants in their hometowns, including their high schools and universities. Participants drafted individual session reports, while the project team compiled a country-wide report summarizing the games’ strengths and areas for improvement based on feedback from these pilot sessions.
Following the pilot phase, participants reconvened online to refine the games’ functionality and user experience. They collaboratively developed a toolkit, promotional videos, and instructions for online “Training of Trainers” (ToT) sessions aimed at teachers and facilitators from civil society organizations. Once finalized, the board games were disseminated across Bosnia and Herzegovina in both printed and online formats.
The Game Changers fosters the capacity of interdisciplinary cooperation and interaction among youth across BiH, improving their ability to understand different and interconnected facets of civic and democratic engagement in the fields related to gender equality and women’s rights.
