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In the Oasis Game, a community dreams together and, in just a few days, builds what it has chosen.
The Oasis Game is a social technology created by Instituto Elos to support the mobilisation of a community around a shared dream. It is played entirely cooperatively: the rules are designed so that everyone wins, without exception.
A social technology from Instituto Elos
Everyone plays together.
Nobody loses out.
The prize is a dream come true for the community.
The game involves players and a community, and it takes a broad view of what constitutes a community: residents, organisations, public authorities, community leaders and businesses. Together, they dream up and build a project chosen by the people who live there, which could be a square, a park, a vegetable garden, a nursery or a cultural centre.
An oasis offers hope and respite to those crossing the desert. Even in the harshest of places, there are glimmers of light. The game exists to strengthen those who are already there and to inspire others.
The Oasis Game is the Elos Methodology in the form of a game. The seven steps become stages, roles and tasks, and a group of players guides the community through the physical and social transformation of the place. The result is what you see. What remains is the realisation that it is possible to act together.
How to play.
The rules of the game are the seven steps of the Elos Methodology. Each step is a phase, with a beginning, a middle and an end.
01 · Gaze
The players explore the area and document what is already there: people with skills, spaces that work, and the stories the neighbourhood tells about itself.
02 · Affection
Trust comes before the project. Local residents, public authorities, businesses and organisations are coming together, including those who are opposed to it.
03 · Dream
For many people, their wish becomes a single dream, chosen by the community.
04 · Caution
The group plans what needs to be done, who will carry out each part, using what resources, and by when.
05 · Miracle
The community effort. It seems impossible to gather the necessary materials and people in time, yet the community finds that it can do it.
06 · Celebration
The group openly acknowledges what it has done, and learns from what worked and what didn’t.
07 · Re-evolution
Who looks after what has been built, and what is the next dream the group chooses to pursue?
Where it has been played
From a square in Santos to the world.
The first Oasis Game took place in 2003, in the centre of Santos. In 2009, the Banco do Brasil Foundation recognised the game as a form of social technology, and it has been played in Brazil and abroad ever since.
Paquetá · Santos
2003
The first Oasis. Local residents chose a square that had been abandoned for years, built scale models and transformed the space, in collaboration with the Associação dos Cortiços do Centro and SESC Santos.
Santa Catarina
2009
The game becomes a certified social technology. In the same year, Oasis Santa Catarina takes the method to towns affected by an environmental disaster, and from there the Oasis Mundo network is born.
Jardim São Manoel · Santos
2010
An Oasis Game organised by the Ânima Educação Group and the local community led to the creation of the mangrove square. It marked the start of a fifteen-year partnership.
Lynnwood · United States
2023
Residents, experts and partners worked together to shape the neighbourhood’s future, and the city council approved the zoning plan that paved the way for the regeneration of two housing estates.
When you play.
The Oasis Game is for those who want to see a community working together, rather than just taking.
To get started on a local development plan
This first tangible achievement shows the local community that change lies in the hands of those who live there.
To strengthen teamwork
The game requires cooperation at all times, and players come away having learnt how to work together.
For companies looking to engage their teams
Meaningful volunteering, working alongside the community, rather than a one-off initiative.
To restore or build a space
A square, a vegetable garden, a park, a nursery: whichever space the community chooses.
Would you like to take an Oasis Game to a particular area?
The Oasis Experience is the way to play with Elos, with the team facilitating the whole process from start to finish.