> "<http://www.schmitt-degenhardt.de/Sim/Mgt/Village.htm>"
> The Village Game
> Copyright: ILO, GTZ, Stephan Schmitt-Degenhardt (1995, 1996/1997/1998)
> Brief
> Designed as a modular board game the Village Game simulates a villager's daily life based on planting and harvesting a number of major crops. One round in the game represents one year in reality. Each round the player receives workdays to plant crops and - after the maturity period - harvest them and sell them to the game-bank. The player has to generate enough money out of farming to pay the regular needs of his/her family and the cost of the cultivation. The target group can therefore build all game-related actions on indigenous knowledge, making it an easily understandable training tool.
> The aim of the game is to make good farm-management decisions by foresighted planning and budgeting. In so doing the economic situation of the household can be improved step-by-step. It can be applied as pre-workshop training tool, as core or additional element during workshops, or just as a family game.
> Background
> The Village Game originates in Fiji, where it has been developed for Cooperative and Small Enterprise Development Programmes of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Its official launch in July 1995 in Fiji, Vanuatu, Tuvalu and Western Samoa was an instant success.
> In 1996, the author introduced the Village Game to "CEFE International" - a small enterprise development programme of the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ). From here the game started to be introduced in all continents: 12 adaptations have so far been developed for 11 countries. By now, the game has been used in at least 35 countries (cf. map on the dissemination of the Village Game). These were the partner projects so far:
> Design
> The Village Game is designed to improve the commercial awareness of rural populations by addressing the impact of planning and budgeting decisions, decision-making and negotiation skills, traditional obligations and behaviour on the economic success of a rural household. It therefore prepares villagers for learning these commercially essential skills that will improve their economic performance and, eventually, village life.
> Due to its modular construction system, the Village Game allows an easy step-by-step learning starting with an "Introductory Game", and it can be played in almost any combination with any one or more of the other modules. Different modules take different elements of farm management into consideration. Besides the main training objectives planning and budgeting of money and time, decision making and negotiation, they thus add new training aspects such as:
> landholding-restrictions and splitting of inherited land
> depreciation and maintenance of tools and machines
> improved production technologies
> soil-fertility conservation and improvement
> droughts, floods, crop-diseases and their prevention
> storage of agricultural products
> processing of agricultural products
> commercialisation of products on different markets
> fluctuating prices of input and output goods
> subsistence economy
> income generating activities
> employment and hiring out
> credit
> social obligations and their impact on the household economy
> team-building
> A board-game should be as easy as possible. As a consequence, the most of the above modules reflect only the amount of investments required and not the precise manner of investment.
>
>
> Mark Perkins (Librarian) MLib, MCLIP
> Secretariat of the Pacific Community Library
> BP D5, 98848 Noumea Cedex
> New Caledonia, South Pacific
> Tel: +687 262000 Fax: +687 263818
> email: markp@spc.int <<mailto:markp@spc.int>>
> web: <<http://www.spc.int/library/>>
>
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