In 2016, as Switch was taking up residence in the heart of Cureghem, in Anderlecht, the whole team wanted to start a project about this fascinating neighbourhood. Walking through its streets, we discovered an exceptionally multicultural neighborhood, the result of more than a century of migrations.
That’s when we decided to develop Curegame in collaboration with the Solidarity Service of the municipality of Anderlecht. Curegame is a transmedia device with a mobile app at its core. The app can be downloaded on smartphones and tablets. Users embark on an interactive journey through the streets of Cureghem to learn about its people and history.
Discover the project : curegame.be
We simultaneously produced a twenty-minute documentary to complement the first-hand experience. The documentary paints the portrait of five people who experienced migration at different times. With them, we address several universal issues such as leaving their own country, their relationship to their country of origin, integration and community life.
In order to allow teachers and animators to deepen the educational work with two tools at their disposal, we designed an educational guide that provides a theoretical basis and two animation sequences of 50 minutes each.
We faced a huge challenge as soon as the project started: introducing a young audience to a complex theme – social protection – in a school context. We suggested developping a serious game in the form of a simple role-playing game that would get the user to step into the shoes of a head of state in an imaginary country.
Découvrir le serious game : bienvenueaprovidence.com
We needed to go beyond fiction by portraying concrete realities (policies and their impact on populations). Parallel to the game, we made a 26-minute documentary shot in 3 different contexts: Belgium, Bolivia and Senegal.
In order to help teachers during the facilitation process, we designed a guide that explains the stages of the game and provides additional content allowing the teacher to complete the information.
The device was distributed as part of CNCD-11.11.11’s educational package on Social Protection during the 2015-2016 school year. Many events were held by regional leaders as part of the campaign. Finally, the game was evaluated by the Review Committee of “Annoncer la Couleur”. Their feedback on the tool’s educational value was extremely positive.