Speaking about living together!

This activity focuses on the empowerment of the participants through argumentation, debates and role playing activities. The session should start with an open discussion with theoretical questions such as “how do the participants understand the concept of stereotypes?”, “do they recognize their personal stereotypes?”, “how do they respond to them?’.

The goal is to open a discussion in order to raise awareness about the various forms that a stereotype could have.

After the introductory discussion, the trainer introduces the participants to the experiential part of the session. The trainer explains to the group that the following activity will be a role play activity. The topic of the role play is that “in our block of flats” there is an issue against a migrant family and the neighbors have asked the council of the building to have a meeting in order to make a decision. The group is divided to the volunteers (minimum 6 – maximum 9) and the observers (all the rest). The volunteers receive one role and they have to argue during the meeting according to this role.
Examples of roles:
-young foreigner who came to explain the situation of his/her family,
-person living with his/her family who doesn’t care about the foreign neighbour,
-person who conducted the meeting because he is against the migrant family,
-young student without a particular opinion in the topic.

The roles can be described according to the needs of the activity.
The trainer gives the final information to the participants about the time and the basic rules.

The activity is followed by a debriefing emphasising to the personal feelings and thoughts both of the players and the observer.