“How can one do meaningful youth engagement for a digital game?”, I asked myself in early July, 2022, when I was asked to lead youth engagement in the Go Nisha Go programme.
Go Nisha Go is a one-of-its-kind, roleplay-based game that not only supported young people to learn more about themes related to sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR), but also provided Restless Development with an opportunity to strengthen our capacity to create and begin difficult conversations around SRHR within their communities and households - with mothers as well!
But how did that happen?
In the programme, we had to work with both Youth Leaders, changemakers, and coalition partners in Delhi, Bihar (Patna), and Rajasthan (Jaipur). It was important for us to step back and reassess what meaningful youth engagement (MYE) through a digital game would mean to us?
It means that young people are not just delivering the programme, but acting as contributors to different components of the programme, with constant support and mentorship.
Legally, all Youth Leaders were aged 18-20 years, which meant for many of them it was their first formal project. This put more responsibility on us to ensure that they had adequate training, support, and enough opportunities to grow while being mindful of their larger lives. So we mapped Youth Leaders with our coalition partners, based on location proximity.
Whenever a partner organisation did an awareness event on any of the themes related to the game, they worked with the Youth Leaders to plan, design, and facilitate the events. The partners strived to provide a safe space for Youth Leaders to learn, make mistakes, and ultimately lead the discussions in these events.
Slowly, based on our approach, we built the MYE model for the Go Nisha Go programme’s Phase 1.
But, how did the game contribute to this youth engagement?
The game, supplemented by foundation training, acted as a vital source of the knowledge that was passed through these events. These events were, also, a space for the youth leaders to authentically share how games contributed to their leadership journeys - which they planned to continue on, as they moved forward professionally in the development space. Some of our youth leaders and partners were even recognised locally for their work and efforts - exciting, right?
Not only this, our model of youth engagement ensured that partners, young people and their changemakers (other adolescents) had ample opportunities to get their voices heard - they gave curated feedback on different components of the game through several listening exercises.
The fact that some of the feedback was applied to adapt the game for young people boosted their confidence and enhanced their motivation to continue the work they had been doing - they were not just doing events but also contributing to a game that has now reached over 150k downloads (and counting!) across India!
While there were many other components that were present in the programme, we are proud of being able to do meaningful youth engagement in an innovative, tech-based approach for the first time ever, thus also empowering more youth, especially young girls, to be more tech-savvy!
Young leaders learned from the game and the game evolved from the feedback of the youth leaders - there is nothing more that we could have asked for.
Shagun Sharma is the Youth Engagement Officer & Programme lead for Go Nisha Go.