The first gamesin.eu team meeting with the young people took place on 5 March at KAOS in Leipzig. The team consists of 7 participants aged 14 to 26 and 2 team leaders as well as the project coordinator.
The atmosphere was friendly and relaxed, as many of the participants already knew each other from previous youth meetings. The meeting lasted 5 hours, divided into two parts with an hour break in between.
The first half was dedicated to general getting to know each other. We got together, exchanged names and background information. Then we discussed past experiences as well as expectations, motivations and hopes for the current project. To strengthen team cohesion, we played some games (e.g. name recall game, facts-about-yourself game).
During the lunch break, we discussed what our next meeting could look like and generally had the opportunity to have more personal conversations with the participants. After lunch, the young people had some free time to go outside and explore the surroundings of KAOS.
In the second half of the meeting, we gave the participants the opportunity to choose a medium from various art materials (paint, pens, magnets, mosaics, cameras, recording devices, etc.).
The aim was to visualise a story from their personal international experience with these materials. Most of the young people chose paper and pencil to record their ideas.
After the creative craft session, each participant presented his/her work and told the original story/motivation/thought behind it. The team leaders collected the first rough drafts of some characters, settings and storylines that could be used for the final project.
In the gamesin.eu project, young people from Portugal, Finland, Germany and Greece are working together to develop a digital games platform that allows them to experience or recreate international youth encounters online. They work regularly in their local groups, share their results online on the gamesin.eu platform and meet online from time to time. In July, all the young people from the different countries will meet in Finland and finalise their stories and games as well as the platform. The technical and graphic side of the game development is done by a start-up from Leipzig, Germany.
