The Oasis Game is a methodology to support citizen mobilization for the realization of collective dreams.
Composed of players and communities, the game considers a broad definition of community that involves diverse actors such as residents, NGOs, local government, leaders, and companies. Designed to be freely shared and played in cooperation so that everyone together can achieve something in common, The Oasis Game set rules that allow everyone who participates to win, without exception.
You can play and download the Oasis Game here.
The Oasis Game in action
The Oasis Game is organized in four to ten days and invites a community to collaboratively dream up and build a challenging project chosen by community residents to meet their needs. Projects can range from a square, a playground, a kindergarten to a communiity hall. The game considers a broad definition for the word community which involves representatives from different sectors of society – NGOs, government, and community members from other parts of the city.
The idea behind the name Oasis came from the history books: an oasis offers hope, refuge, and stability for the weary traveler in the desert. Our world is full of vast “deserts”: regions and communities where vitality has been destroyed socially and/or environmentally. Yet in these places, there are still unquestionable points of light filled with hope, beauty, and joy. The Oasis Game is intended to develop more points of light and create new ones to expand what is already there. A community can work together cooperatively, creatively and quickly to build a modern Oasis in just a few days: a physical space that promotes life, joy and restoration.
The Oasis Game is based on the 7 disciplines of Elos’ Philosophy in a gamified format to transform communities in a playful and collective way. Guided by the steps, assignments, roles, and other tools of the game, a group of players engage a community in the physical and social transformation of their reality.
The game is the essence of the GSA Program program with an emphasis on community. In Warriors Without Guns, the game aims to awaken and cultivate a spirit of social and cooperative entrepreneurship in community members, but it also emphasizes stimulation in the community itself. In this respect, two of the main goals are to restore and/or strengthen the affective relationships and connections that bind the community together to cultivate a sense of opportunity and responsibility to care for people and the environment.
The Oasis Game may...
Stimulates and enables entrepreneurship and cooperation in groups and communities
Promotes an appreciative look and broadens each person’s ability to propose creative solutions to critical issues concerning the neighborhood community
Brings a daily shift in perception for participants that it is possible to change the world without suffering; without compromising their freedom and autonomy and still make it in a pleasant way
Promotes the practice of human values, such as respect, compassion, cooperation, acceptance of differences, etc.
Expands the level of information about environmental sustainability strategies and construction
Restores or builds a community dream, enabling its replication
The Oasis Game is recommended for the following situations:
- When you want to stimulate and develop group work
- When a company wants to stimulate volunteer work
- To start a local development plan
- When we want to present values that can hardly be assimilated by intellectual learning
- When you want to stimulate the “MAKE IT HAPPEN” attitude in a group
- When you want to promote radical change of culture in a group or team
Why Oasis Game?
The Oasis Game has a social effect (empowerment, stronger sense of community) and a material result (the dream materializes during the process) and is realized in a very short time. We realized that the Oasis Game meets an urgent need for communities to get to know each other better and solve problems on their own, without having to fill out 20 forms. At the same time, local government and housing institutions want to meet this need, but have no idea how to really engage with the communities.
The Oasis Game is played by active people from a community, local stakeholders, and volunteers. A group of 20-30 people is supported, hosted, and facilitated by a facilitation team
THE 7 STEPS OF THE OASIS GAME
During the preparation, the group goes into the community to mobilize people to find, design, and realize their community’s dream. This starts after a preparation of one and a half months in advance. In real life the group performs the Oasis Game in 6 to 7 days, most often spread over two weekends.
On these days the group goes through the 7 stages of the Oasis Game, explained here:
Results
Os Jogos Oasis sempre têm um resultado social e material.
Social: Basically, it’s about activation, participation, and cooperation with your neighborhood to do something for the neighborhood. If you join forces, with everyone together, you can make dreams come true. This is the energy that you want to create and develop. Visible social impact happens through:
- strengthening residents’ belief in their own power;
- more residents come together to work to begin community building;
- more people from different backgrounds come together peacefully
- residents and officials meet more easily and become more familiar with each other, mainly because they worked together in the Oasis Game;
- the sense of initiative is strengthened;
- People feel more responsible for their environment;
- Residents begin to form a community and start more projects and more dreams that have not yet been realized.
Material: material results are usually expressed in public spaces, but can also be seen in buildings. The results of the previous games are:
- parks and meeting spaces with vegetable gardens, benches and trash cans;
- Murals in important places in the community;
- Construction of vertical gardens and herb gardens;
- Playground equipment;
- Leisure spaces such as sports courts, space for plays or community libraries, etc.
