Are you unemployed, interested in finding out more about social enterprise and setting up your own business,
and interested in playing this online game?
Social Seducement is a game-playing pilot
to help local unemployed people get into social enterprise
The role of game-playing to help learning has become increasingly important partly because traditional forms of learning do not work for everyone. Additionally, when you are long-term unemployed, it can be very difficult to get meaningful work in a crowded, competitive job market. As social inequalities grow and people become more disheartened with big business values, there are good opportunities for businesses with social aims at the core of their work, called social enterprises. The Social Seducement game is an innovative approach to help people build skills for employment or self-employment, and enthuse people about the potential for collective social enterprise as a way to create employment which benefits individuals and society as a whole.
London Borough of Waltham Forest Adult Learning Service is working with the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and facilitator, Harsha Patel, from Doing Social to run the game as part of a new course at Waltham Forest’s Queens Road Adult Learning Centre, for local unemployed people. Players will get the opportunity to work with others both online and offline, have use of the computers at Queens Road and receive additional support alongside playing the game, to help learn about social enterprise. At the end of the game, they will have developed a business idea that could benefit local communities. And because it’s a game, players can enjoy trying out how to build a collective social enterprise, and take the lessons learnt from playing online into the real-world.
If you are unemployed, interested in finding out more about social enterprise and setting up your own business, come along to a drop-in information session to find out more - see dates below. (You don’t need any experience of business or social enterprise to join the course).
Monday 5th December 13:00 – 15:00
or Friday 9th December 10:00 – 12:00
or Friday 6th January 10:00 – 12:00
At: Queens Road Learning Centre
97 Queens Road
Walthamstow E17 8QR
Or contact: adult.learning@walthamforest.gov.uk
About The Social Seducement Game
The Social Seducement game has been designed through the Social Seducement Project, involving six European partners, including the London-based Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. Supported by Erasmus + funding from the EU Commission, the partners have researched and developed this new, online role-playing game, which is aimed at adults wanting to learn more about collective social enterprise through an online experience. The game is currently being piloted in Belgium, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK, with groups of unemployed people, students and charity and social enterprise workers. After piloting, the game will have final improvements made, before being made available for anyone who wants to use it. Players in Waltham Forest will be helping the game developers create an accessible resource that helps empower people to consider setting up their own social enterprises. Players will be supported in their learning process by a facilitator, a person who understands both groups and the entrepreneurial process.
The Social Seducement game is an internet-based serious online role play game. During a session of the game, each player will assume the role of a single character, making decisions that will affect the character development and contribute to build the general storyline. Working individually and in groups, players will learn, following a step-by-step approach, how to start up a new collective social economy enterprise. They will face unforeseen events and incidents that simulate the many different aspects collaborative entrepreneurs experience, from the management of conflicts between people, to the writing of a complete business plan. At the end of the game session, players will be able to start up a cooperative enterprise. In going through the different levels of the game, players will learn skills and competencies such as: definition of problems, opportunities and solutions in terms of value creation; persisting through and learning from failure; identification of personal passion and development of plans for professional development; applying creative thinking to ambiguous problems as well as applying system thinking to complex problem. Players will be supported in their learning process by a facilitator, a person who understands both groups and the entrepreneurial process.
Further information on how the game works and the project partners can be found on the project website: www.socialseducement.net.
For more information please contact Sarah Ward at: sarah.ward@walthamforest.gov.uk
