Globingo

Aim: to emphasize how people across the world are connected and depend on each other.

Age group: any.

Number of participants: 10-20.

Time required: 20-30 minutes.

Resources needed: Globingo sheets for each participant, pencils or pens, map of the world (optional), coloured dots (optional).

What to do:

[Optional] Read out this quote, saying that this is something to think about before doing the next activity. “Before finishing my breakfast I have depended on the whole world” (Martin Luther King). Don’t ask for comments or reveal where the quote is from.

Give a Globingo sheet to each participant.

Ask them to go around the group filling in the gaps on the Globingo sheet with a name and a country. Tell them how long they have – 5 to 10 minutes depending on size of group.

After 5-10 minutes gather together and count the countries.

Feedback – which countries have been mentioned, and for which questions? Take about three minutes worth of examples from the whole group, making sure each person has said at least one country.

If you have access to a world map, ask participants to put sticky dots on countries that are mentioned, and afterwards look at the spread and count them up (roughly). See how many global connections the group has.

Refer to the quote at the beginning if you mentioned it. What do people think about it? Does it have some truth?

Variation:

A simpler version that could be played sitting in a circle, maybe as at council circle.

The person in the middle says: “Change places if…” and says a category that includes him/her self, e.g. “If you have a relative living in another country, change places”.

Whilst people change places, the person in the middle has to try and sit in a free seat. The one without a seat continues the game each round.

Encourage people to try and think of a ‘global’ question or you could have a copy of the ‘Globingo’ sheet to hand so that the person in the middle has the option to choose one of them to read out.