About The Game

Peer bullying has been a significant and growing issue for many children, teachers, as well as caregivers/parents in recent years. As bullying has adverse consequences within the lives of children, Save the Children (SC) Turkey Country Office (TCO) has produced a game, namely “Inter-Universe Adventure” (officially “Evrenler Arası Macera” in Turkish), aiming to support existing efforts to prevent peer bullying, in cooperation with Avcılar Leyla Bayram Primary School and the game development company, Root.

Inter-Universe Adventure aims to strengthen children’s knowledge and skills on different types of peer bullying, and ways of dealing with it through an interactive and play-based methodology. The game is available in board game, print& play and digital (offline) formats. The mechanics and the content of the game provide a fun, safe and educational environment to inform children about peer bullying and what can be done when they face peer bullying. Additionally, the content supports child development in the following areas;

• Development of expressing emotion, empathy, and emotion regulation through perspective taking and role playing,

• Development of skills of being together and sharing with peers and learning about non-violence, respect to human rights in a fun environment,

• Development of vocabulary, sorting, classification, grouping skills, focus and attention,

• Development in in creativity and imagination.

Inter-Universe Adventure game mechanics and content supports child development in many areas. The game board has been prepared to help children embrace diversity by encouraging non-violent communication, conflict resolution, and support social cohesion in the long run.

All the versions can be played through the support from a particular facilitator and we believe that the role of facilitators are quite important for reflection on certain topics to increase awareness and induce positive change among children. Therefore, this manual is developed for different groups of facilitators who will be guiding and supporting children in the related processes. Teachers, parents/caregivers, educators, and any person working in the education sector will hopefully be able to facilitate the game by following the tips, suggestions, and prompting questions provided within this manual.

How was Inter-Universe Adventure game developed?

SC TCO tries to ensure child participation and meaningful involvement of children in every step of the projects. In line with this approach, the design and the content of the game were developed by ensuring child participation. Children participating in our psychosocial support sessions identified their expectations from the game, selected game characters and modality, and provided regular feedback through a child-led participation approach. Accordingly, the issues of concern are identified by children themselves where adults serve as facilitators rather than leaders, and children control the process.

It was decided that the game would take place in 4 different regions; covering a neighborhood, the school of robots, the wild jungle and finally the space (hero planets).

The children then reviewed and decided on the characters to take part in the game. The characters to be featured in the game are robot kid, super hero kid, visually impaired kid, walking disabled kid, painter kid, musician kid, Asian kid, African kid. The children expressed that they thought boys and girls were doing many things equally and decided that the game characters should be gender neutral, which should be reflected in the visual design and the naming conventions which were duly considered by the project team and Root.

Finally, the children decided on the name of the game by sharing their ideas in the workshops and voting on these ideas. The name of the game was determined as “Inter-Universe Adventure”.

What is peer bullying?

In general, some basic criteria are required for an action to be defined as bullying. These are;

• Behaving aggressively with the intent to cause harm,

• The fact that these negative actions are applied continuously, not just once,

• Unequal balance of power between the parties,

• It is generally composed of systematic and organized behaviors.

What are the types of peer bullying?

• Physical bullying: Physical harassment in the form of biting, pulling hair, hitting, pushing, poking or pulling, extortion, kicking or slapping, beating, locking in the room, punching, scratching, spitting, scaring, damaging or confiscating private items, etc.

• Verbal bullying: Disturbing phone calls, intimidation, threats of violence, naming, teasing, mocking by socioeconomic level or intelligence level, insulting the victim’s family, using sexually abusive words, intimidation outside or around the school, wrong or bad spreading intentional rumors, etc.

• Non-verbal bullying: Cruel glances and various hand gestures, affecting or breaking friendships, often deliberately and systematically not accepting someone as a friend, ignoring, posting ugly notes, writing ugly words about victims to various places.

• Cyberbullying is detailed as an individual uses digital communication tools, smartphones or other electronic devices to deliberately harass, mistreat, or make fun of another, and repeat this constantly. Cyberbullying usually involves a threatening or blackmail message, the spread, disclosure of real or unrealistic rumors on online platforms, and similar actions.

Tips for the Facilitators

If you are facilitating the game within a school/learning environment;

• In crowded classrooms, it may be tricky to choose children to involve in the teams. Try to select the children in a random fashion in order to avoid any conflicts within peers.

• While forming the teams, you can increase the number of members by assigning different roles to children within the classroom such as supporter and/or auditor. This will help to include more students.

• Ensure that everyone will be able to participate in the game eventually if there is increasing tension and/or requests.

Encourage both teams in the beginning of the game and remind some ground rules for collaboration and cohesion to avoid any negative peer conflicts