This activity addresses stereotypes, eliciting the images we have about people from other cultures, social groups etc. This helps participants to be aware of how these images condition our expectations of people who belong to other groups.

REQUIREMENTS

• Time: 30 minutes
• Note: larger groups can be sub-divided
• A ball
• Paper and pen for the observer
• Flip chart and marker pen.

DESCRIPTION

1. Divide the participants into groups of about 6-8 people.
2. Ask people from each group to sit in a circle and ask one person among them to volunteer for the role of the observer. The observer will sit outside the circle and write down the story that is going to be created.
3. Explain to the rest of the group that together they are going to create a co-operative story (it is important that the activity is initially presented simply as the creation of a co-operative story). For this they are going to use a ball. Then say: “This is the story of Antonio, a young man from Madrid” and pass the ball to a member of the group and invite them to continue with the next one or two sentences of the story and to then pass the ball to someone else.
4. Continue in this way so that the story is built co-operatively.
5. After 10 or 12 turns ask for the ball and say: “Antonio knows Ali, a Moroccan boy who also has a story” and pass the ball back to someone in the circle and ask them to start telling Ali's story.
6. Bring the activity to an end after about 10 or 15 minutes.
7. Ask the observers to read the stories to the whole group of participants

DISCUSSION TOPICS (DEBRIEFING & EVALUATION)

• How did you like this experience about the co-creation of a story?
• Are there some differences that we can observe between the story of Antonio and the one of Ali? (Make notes of the main points on flip chart)
• Why do you think these differences appear, can we connect them with realities from society?
• What can this activity teach us about the life of migrants/refugees and the challenges they face?

Possible variation

Divide the group into two sub-groups and ask each group to work on only one of the stories. Afterwards, compare the two. This variation has the advantage that the participants do not suspect that the stories are to be compared. It is important that the participants are split into the sub-groups at random.

Inspired by: Education Pack "all different - all equal", Council of Europe, second edition revised in 2016, pg 63-64, https://rm.coe.int/1680700aac, 09/05/2019