Ayiti: The Cost of Life
In 2005, because of its innovative work in youth-developed online games, Global Kids was fortunate to have been selected as one of eleven organizations supported by Microsoft's Partners in Learning Mid-Tier Initiative, which seeks to identify and encourage "pockets of innovation" for increasing digital literacy and career readiness. Ayiti: The Cost of Life is the first game produced through Microsoft's support.
This year, based on their research and their own knowledge of critical global issues and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international covenants, Playing 4 Keeps (see below) participants chose to focus their game on the general topic of poverty as an obstacle to education, with Haiti as a case study and setting for the game. UNICEF's Voices of Youth site played a key role preparing the Global Kids Leaders to decide the topic for the game while UNICEF's Child Alert: Haiti site helped inform them about the specifics about youth and education in Haiti. Global Kids is delighted to work now with UNICEF as a premiere partner hosting the game.
Playing 4 Keeps (P4K)
Playing 4 Keeps (P4K) is an innovative youth media project that involves a team of Global Kids youth leaders at South Shore High School in Brooklyn, New York, USA. These young people learn to develop and produce socially conscious online games, while gaining skills in game design, digital media, leadership, and peer education. The program is a collaboration with the award-winning online game design company Gamelab, with whom the Global Kids Leaders have worked closely in the production of the Ayiti game.
In the future, the Playing 4 Keeps youth leaders are planning to develop games on Global Kids Island in the virtual world Teen Second Life.
To learn more about Global Kids, Inc. and this program, please visit GlobalKids.org.
To learn more about Ayiti: The Cost of Life, please go to either www.holymeatballs.org/playing_4_keeps or www.myspace.com/thecostoflife.
To learn more about Gamelab visit www.gamelab.com
Visit UNICEF's Child Alert: Haiti http://www.unicef.org/childalert/haiti/
