The stories of the five characters: taking the perspective of the duty-bearer

Topic
- Citizenship & human rights
Learning skills
- Empathy & social awareness
- Critical & reflective thinking
- Visual & auditory perception
- Communication & expression
Activity type
- Group discussion
Materials
- Printable downloads
Age
- 6 - 11 years
- 12 - 14 years
- 15 - 17 years
>15 minutes
+5 players
Intermediate
Calm
Small (office, pavement)

Contributors

Mobile School

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Everything you need to play this game

Poster 'The stories of the five characters' EN Download general-the-stories-of-the-five-characters-code-kopieren.jpg (35.9mb)
Poster 'The stories of the five characters' DE Download general-the-stories-of-the-five-characters-de-small.png (18mb)
Poster 'The stories of the five characters' EL Download general-the-stories-of-the-five-characters-el-small.png (18mb)
Poster 'The stories of the five characters' ES Download general-the-stories-of-the-five-characters-es-small.png (18mb)
Poster 'The stories of the five characters' FR Download general-the-stories-of-the-five-characters-fr-small.png (18mb)
Poster 'The stories of the five characters' NL Download general-the-stories-of-the-five-characters-nl-small.png (18mb)

A step-by-step guide to play the game

Gather a group of five players around the poster 'The stories of the five characters'.

Divide the numbers 1 - 5 among the characters on the poster (in your mind) and have each players choose a number. The character with the corresponding number is then assigned to the players.

The players think about the different duty-bearers involved in their character's story and write down these duty-bearers.

Let the players choose one of the duty-bearers from their storyline, such as a teacher, policewoman, or health worker, and ask them to tell the story from the perspective of that duty-bearer. Encourage the children to really empathise with the character of the duty-bearer, and use support questions as necessary to facilitate the thinking process (see additional game information).

End the game with a short discussion, using the discussion questions provided in the additional game information if necessary.

Extra game information

Support questions

Who does the duty-bearer gets in contact with within your character’s story?
How would you as a duty-bearer react in the different situations within the characters’ story?
What would you as duty-bearer possible say?
...

Discussion questions

How did the activity go? What did you learn from this exercise?
Was it easy to tell the story from the perspective of a duty bearer? Why not?
What did you learn about (a specific) duty-bearer(s) in this exercise?
...

The stories of the five characters poster show the storylines of the five main characters of the toolkit. The full storylines of the characters can be found in the appendix of the activity bundle. On the left-hand side of the panel, the main characters are shown with a QR code one can scan to listen to their story in different languages. Next to the characters, six green rights and six red rights are depicted. These icons show the main children's rights which are respected and violated in the story of the specific character. In order to interpret the children's rights icons, it might be useful to always have the children's rights overview panel with you.

This game has been specially created to work on the topic of duty-bearers with children and youngsters.

All children's rights icons used on the posters are created by UNICEF for their child-friendly version of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Variations

(1) Playing with fewer than five people? Divide the group into smaller groups and have them work together to tell the story from the perspective of the duty-bearer. This is also a good alternative when children lack confidence or find it difficult to tell the story alone.

(2) Combine this activity with the input from the game 'The stories of the five characters: how duty-bearers are perceived according to children' to contrast children and young people's ideas with those of the duty-bearers. This input can promote discussion.

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