COVID-19 PACKAGE - Personal Safety • Street Culture

This activity is a part of the COVID-19 package. The package aims to give youth workers the tools to discuss the consequences of the pandemic with their target group. The COVID-19 overview panel is the starting point for all the discussions. After playing the overview panel, extra activities on the seven different topics are available to dive deeper into the matter. 

On the Street Culture Panel, there are 3 different situations. The situations are (from top to bottom):

1. Three youngsters sitting and smoking under a tree.
2. A group of young people hanging around in the streets.
3. A boy lying down on the ground with a police officer and bystanders watching.

Talking about personal safety and social interaction during a pandemic is crucial, since very often young people are arrested for hanging around in the streets. Moreover, youngsters cannot hang around in public places and lack the social contacts they used to have before with friends.

• Drawing advanced: make multiple drawings of the situations on the panel for different years. How would this situation look like in 2025? In 2050? In 2001?
• The importance of friendship: give the players a paper and ask them to write down 3 things they love about their friends.
• The role of the police: on the 3rd image, a police officer is shown. Ask the youngsters how they feel about the police in times of the pandemic. Do you trust them? Are they doing a good job? What can be improved? Have you been in contact with the police recently? Do you feel safe when a police officer is around?
• Give a compliment to your friend: ask the kids to write down a compliment for all of the other participants. Put all the papers in a hat, and read them out loud afterwards. The player who has written the compliment, explains why he has written it. Repeat till all the compliments are covered.

• Learn to express appreciation towards your friends
• Learn to talk about difficult topics such as personal safety