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MUNICIPALITY`S SIMULATION (*worksheets)

To experience cross-sectorial cooperation in practice. To analyse youth policy actors’ cooperation opportunities and possible cooperation obstacles. To get acquainted with youth policy actors at municipal level.

 

 TIME REQUIRED

Half a day to one day, approximately 6 hours. We recommend you dedicate a day to this workshop.

 

RESOURCES

Printed tasks that are designed for this exercise.

4-5 board game units. Writing tools, printers, PCs with internet access.

 

ACTION

Participants are split into groups ranging from 4 to 7 members. Each group receives a paper sheet with the task. The Task Leader checks that each group have clearly understood the task. Participants have 90- 120 minutes to complete the task and reach the given objectives.

 

DISCUSSION

How do I feel after the task? / What is your mood after the task? Why?

It is important that the participants should express their emotion / mood (depending on group’s ability to reflect on the task). Ask for the reasons (which group members made them feel this way).

Do not focus on the process and do not allow participants to blame others, because later everything will be revealed.

During the break allow participants to share their impressions and feelings. However, ask the participants not to disclose their secret role and not to analyse the process.

 

Structural discussion process

Participants return to the groups in which they were implementing the simulation game.

The groups are invited to draw the task process curve from their group’s perspective on a sheet of paper. In their groups, they have to conduct breaking point analysis, depict the breaking points, and then present their experience to other groups:

  • What happened during the simulation game? (the process from your group perspective)
  • Which activities, interventions, participants, actors had impacted the change in their group’s process curve?
  • Was your group scattered or split into several micro groups?
  • How did the emotions of the group members change during the task?

The group members who had secret roles have to reveal them at the end of the presentation.

 

40 minutes for group discussion and drawing the curve on the flipchart sheet.

4–5 presentations.

Duration up to 10 minutes for each presentation including question session and discussion. Allow the group to ask questions, comments and cross-check certain aspects. It is especially important not to allow participants to argue with each other, or start accusing each other.

 

Linking simulation with real life

Where can you lead participants and what can you ask them:

  • Was the youth group passive during the simulation task?
  • How you define passive youth? (the young people who do not implement activities which adults want them to do)
  • What was similar in the simulation game and real life? What has repeated?
  • Certain roles have strong stereotypes, where do they come from? (Participants can empathize too much with the role and become categorical, especially in municipality and working with youth)
  • Why were all the groups so desperate to reach their objectives?
  • Did you look for common objectives with other groups?

What did you learn/ understand? 

 

COMMENTS

Participants are split into groups in a manner where their role in simulation would be as far from the actual role of participants as possible.

Participants receive secret roles. Their roles can be given to them in the presence of others or in secret. The Task Leader should observe and note down phrases describing the process and pointing out certain aspects to participants.

 

FOLLOW UP ACTIVITIES

After this task principles of cross-sectorial cooperation can be presented.

Discuss how different organizations and institutions can cooperate, discover common interests and identify what could facilitate their cooperation.

 

Tasks

Group 1. YOUNG PEOPLE

This paper is very important for your task. You are one of five groups participating in this task. The rest of this page describes how you must behave during the task. Read it carefully and try to put yourself into your role.

You are a group of young people living in ________________ (name of location), studying in a high school and living an ordinary life of a young person. You do not belong to any youth club, nor to youth organizations, because you are not aware about where and how you can participate in youth activities nor whom to join. Perhaps you would be interested in participating in youth activities; however, because you are not aware about participating opportunities, you don’t even put an effort into searching for it. Your main hobby, and main spare time activity, is board games. Recently you purchased some new board games and you want to complete them.

You have to learn the rules of the board games and play each of the games at least 3 times.

You should try to support and motivate each other.

Your work space (where your group gathers) -________________. Do not be surprised if other   groups visit you.

You have to finish the games before ________

At ________ the group has to come back to the meeting room for reflection.

 

Group 2. YOUNG PEOPLE

This paper is very important for your task. You are one of five groups participating in this task. The rest of this page describes how you must behave during the task. Read it carefully and try to put yourself into your role.

The age range of your group is from 18 to 19. You have just graduated from your high school and in the fall you will start university, however, a whole summer is ahead of you. You are a conscious community member of ___________ (name of location). You care about the wellbeing of your town as well as existing social issues. After your last meeting you have decided to help your community to solve a local issue. You have an idea to initiate and implement a local youth project.

 

YOUR TASK: to identify a local issue in ______ (name of location) and initiate a local youth project which aims to solve the issue mentioned before. The youth project has to meet the following criteria:

  • Your proposed solution has to be original and innovative;
  • All group members must be active and get involved in project activities;
  • Your project should have a positive impact on the local community;
  • The awareness about your project should be high;
  • The final outcome will be presented to our community.

Your working space is ____________________. Do not be surprised if other groups visit you.

You have to finish the task before ________

At ________ the group has to come back to the meeting room for reflection.

 

 

Group 3. YOUTH CENTRE

This paper is very important for your task. You are one of five groups participating in this task. The rest of this page describes how you must behave during the task. Read it carefully and try to put yourself into your role.

You are a team of a youth centre, which consists of employees on the payroll and volunteers. Your competence allows your group to support young people in the development and implementation of their ideas. Your weak spot is the integration of young people with fewer opportunities into your activities. Therefore, for this year (today) you have introduced a new priority – integration of at least one non-motivated youth group into youth centre activities and help that group to understand their needs as well as assist them in developing an idea of a project.

Your working space is ____________________. Do not be surprised if other groups visit you.

You have to finish the task before ________

At ________ the group has to come back to the meeting room for reflection.

 

Group 4. MUNICIPALITY

This paper is very important for your task. You are one of five groups participating in this task. The rest of this page describes how you must behave during the task. Read it carefully and try to put yourself into your role.

During elections which took place last week, the council of ___________ (name of the location) was elected. The council rapidly initiated the creation of a Youth Council (prior to this it did not exist). The municipality has 5 000 Euros budget allocated to youth affairs. It’s not a lot, yet better than nothing. Besides that, the municipality has other resources that could be used for youth affairs (equipment, transport, printing). You are willing to help young people, however, the municipal resources can only be used according the regulation of the country and have to comply with the law. Every single Euro spent has to be reported with invoices.

Your task is to establish a system, which would allow young people to use Municipality resources:

  1. Municipality chooses which youth activities to fund based on application from organizations submit. You might need to create application procedure. Before the funds are transferred to the organization’s accounts, you are required to sign a contract. Do not forget that youth organizations have to provide invoices for the money they spend.

The opportunity that you create must be visible. At least one informal group / organization must apply for funding of their activities / idea realization. By the end of the year all the money for youth issues have to be spend, otherwise the money will be allocated to other areas, and next year’s budget for youth issues will be smaller.

Your working space is ____________________. Do not be surprised if other groups visit you.

You have to finish the games before ________

At ________ the group has to come back to the meeting room for reflection.

 

 

Group 5. REGIONAL UNIT OF NATIONAL YOUTH ORGANIZATION

This paper is very important for your task.  You are one of five groups participating in this task. The rest of this page describes how you must behave during task. Read it carefully and try to put yourself into your role.

Your are ACTIVE YOUTH, a National Youth Organization unit based in __________ (name of location). The local community is well aware about your organization due to civic and leisure events you organize. Yet you still did not manage to build a connection with the Municipality.

The National Youth Organization ACTIVE YOUTH has a new strategy and set an objective to contribute to the development of regional youth policy in municipality. Your have to achieve it in your Municipality.

A week ago during a training course, you learned about Youth Councils and decided that you need one.

During the task your group has to contribute to the development of _________’s (name of location)

Municipality’s Youth Policy.

Your working space is ____________________. Do not be surprised if other groups visit you.

You have to finish the games before ________

At ________ the group has to come back to the meeting room for reflection.

 

Secret Roles

 

 MUNICIPALITY GROUP

 

Hi;) This note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget the activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: You are one of the elected representatives of the Municipality. You’re a former teacher who after 27 years of service in a school is tired of young people and do not believe that youth can do anything meaningful. You are looking for ways how you could save some funds from the Youth Affairs budget. Afterwards, the saved budget can be used for the renovation of schools.

 

Hi;) This note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget the activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: you are an employee of Municipality’s administration. Your workload is very heavy and you are constantly searching for who could help you out to cope. A new employee recently joined the Municipality, however, neither his/hers schedule and responsibilities are clear to you. He is the Youth Affairs Coordinator. You try to pass your workload to the Youth Affairs Coordinator.  

 

Hi;) This note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget the activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: you are a Council Member of the Municipality, you have a strong belief that young people can initiate a positive change. You are interested in young people’s opinions and their affairs, you also listen to their issues and try to help them out. 

 

Hi;) This note means that you have additional role. Everyone is aware about your role. Good luck!

Role: you are the Youth Affairs Coordinator. Your core objective – to ensure that the Municipality’s Youth Affair budget should be spent in a proper way and that the Youth Council should operate according to the principles of youth policy.

 

Hi;) This note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget the activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: you are an employee of the Municipality’s administration – a real bureaucrat. Every single Euro spent has to be backed up by an invoice and transaction receipts. The youth initiatives/ projects receive the funds from the Youth budget only if there is an official project application, it meets all the required criteria, it is approved, and the activity execution contract is signed.

 

Secret Roles

 

1 YOUNG PEOPLE (BOARD GAMES)

 

Hi;) This note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget the activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: You are bored playing the boards games. You want to do something meaningful for yourself and others.

 

Hi;) This note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget the activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: You adore playing board games. You are completely satisfied with the current situation and do not want any changes.

Secret Roles

 

ORGANIZATION WORKING WITH YOUTH

 

Hi;) This note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget the activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: You are a sports coach and you focus on sports competitions and professional sports. Young people have to get involved in serious activities, sports in particular, which would facilitate their spiritual and physical development.

 

Hi;) This note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget the activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: You are a folk dance teacher. In your opinion folk dances and cherishing traditions are the only way to preserve your country’s national identity.

 

Secret Roles

 

ACTIVE YOUTH, REGIONAL UNIT OF NATIONAL YOUTH ORGANIZATION

 

Hi;) This note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget the activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: You are a party animal. Your social life, and the social lives of young people, are very important to you. It is always important to you to have fun and provide possibilities for other young people to have fun too. From time to time you start singing famous POP songs.

 

Hi;) This note means that you are selected for a secret role. We kindly ask you not to disclose this information to anyone until the end of the task. Do not forget the activities of your group, however, you should comply with your personal secret role. Good luck!

Role: You are seeking a career in your organization. Task completion is important for you as you believe that you collect political capital, it will help you  in the future with your carrier.


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