Last week we completed a project “Playing for participation!” as a part of our KA2 Strategic Partnership “PEPAR”. Our amazing group from Poland: Irmina, Kamil, Oskar, Natalia, Karolina, Katarzyna and Janek spent the whole week in Mollina in Spain to explore youth participation and gamification together with participants from Czechia, Spain and Denmark! Read an article by Karolina, who shared with us her impressions from the project:

Participation + gamification – the perfect recipe for the perfect project

The 8-day “Playing for participation” training in the sunny-rainy Mollina is behind us. Wondering what I liked the most, I cannot name one, two or five elements … because everything was fantastic! In such a short time, we gained practical knowledge, the power of inspiration, experience, future prospects, and most importantly, great friends from the Czech Republic, Denmark and Spain.

Initial curiosity ‘but what does participation have to do with gamification?’ began to take shape with each passing day. From the very beginning, we were all involved in various activities (such as chore wars which was a team daily competition) that required teamwork. What was the end result of this? It was the main element that made the training for all of us unforgettable. The participation of EVERY one of us made us unite, we felt good in each other’s company, and consequently, we expressed our opinion on the forum without any obstacles.

One of the initial tasks was to anonymously list our concerns about participating in the project. On the last day, we had the opportunity to go back to them and verify that they were justified. Were they? Of course not! A magical mix of different personalities, great organizers and a lot of funny energizers (awakening better than morning coffee!) made us smile a lot. And most importantly – we managed to meet the basic rule set by the main organizer, which was: DON’T DIE: D

The whole project was a perfect example of non-formal education, the topic of which was also discussed. The aim was to provide us with practical knowledge through action, playing games and also mutual interaction. Most of us already know how we want to use the experience we have gained! Thanks to the session devoted to introducing the Erasmus + program to the world, as well as creating our own projects and getting feedback on them, we know how to materialize our ideas 🙂

Each of us is already at home. However, the memories of Mollina, the funny socks that we got from the great organizers, as well as the ‘hymn’ of the project, i.e. the song ‘Happy, happy, happy’, will remain with us for a long time.

Article by Karolina Gajęcka participant of a project “Playing for Participation!”