Activity: Our environment
Connecting: Adolescents work in groups to create maps of their immediate surroundings
Activity overview
Energy level: 4/5
Literacy level: 1/5
Complexity level: 2/5
Time: 30 minutes
Purpose: Create drawings that describe the environment by working in groups; Map the community.
Objectives
Adolescents will be able to:
- Build awareness of their surroundings
- Communicate ideas through drawing
Competency domains
- Identity and self-esteem
- Communication and expression
- Empathy and respect
Works well for
Circles where adolescents can sit together and work on activities as a large group, whether they are just getting to know each other, or already know each other well.
Phase
Connecting
Before
No advance activities are required.
After
Keep adolescents’ drawings or descriptions of their community. Use them as the basis for further activities that can help adolescents to express their experiences through their own eyes, and to explore positive opportunities in their lives.
Activity steps
Step 1
Explanation and discussion: Divide adolescents into small groups. Give each group one large piece of paper.
Step 2
Explain: Participants will draw a map of the community.
Step 3
Use the following questions to encourage adolescents’ thinking, but don’t slow them down if they are ready to start drawing:
- What are the boundaries (limits) of this community? (In some communities, boundaries are officially marked by fences or walls. In others, boundaries may be understood by the people living there, or indicated by unofficial landmarks such as buildings or trees).
- If we want to create a good map of this community, what should we include?
- Where do people live or stay? Which people live or stay in these areas?
- Where do people get water?
- Where do people get food?
- Where do people get other things they need (such as firewood)?
- Where do children go to school?
- Where can people get medical help if they need it?
- Where do adolescents get together outside of school (for example, to play)? Which adolescents get together there (boys, girls, older or younger children, certain groups)? What do they do?
- Where do people pray or worship or conduct religious ceremonies?
- Where do adults get together? What do they do there?
Step 4
After the temporary map has been created, ask the adolescents to demonstrate how they live and carry out their daily activities in the space.
Step 5
Select a group of adolescents and ask them to silently act out their daily routines, beginning with where they are and what they do first thing in the morning. Prompt them with cues to indicate the passing hours of the day, and ask them to change their location based on where they would go and what they would do at those hours.
Step 6
Sharing and Take Away
Discussion:
- Where are the places girls spend the most time? What about boys?
- Where are the most enjoyable places for adolescents and young people to spend time, and why?
- Where are the places you feel safe? Are there places you consider
- dangerous? Where are they, and what are the risks there?
- Are there places that are not being used by them?
Step 7
Facilitator says: “You have shown how much knowledge you have of your environment. Summarize this knowledge.”
Step 8
Discuss:
- What are some of the things you know all well about your environment? In what ways are you experts on your environment?
- What are some of the things you know that could be helpful to other young people? How can you share your knowledge with others?
- What are some other things you would like to know about your environment that could be helpful to you?
Do and don't
Do
- Let adolescents use drawing or whatever way they choose to describe their day.
- Take the right steps if you learn that adolescents may be encountering risks (This may include talking to adolescents one-on-one to learn if they are describing their own behaviour or someone else’s).
Don't
- Tell adolescents what to include in their map, even if they leave out places you think are important.
- Rush to have a discussion about risks and dangers (e.g. safe evacuation routes, dangerous places to avoid) when adolescents are doing this activity for the first time -- Instead, let them use this as an opportunity to explore their communities through their own eyes. You may wish to have a follow-up activity focusing on risks and safety if you think it is important for the adolescents’ protection.
- Push adolescents to share information about their own personal experiences if they don’t want to (Instead, ask them to describe a day in the life of a typical adolescent boy/girl or an adolescent boy/girl like them).
- Ask adolescents to draw the community or place where they lived before a crisis that has affected them, or before being displaced (unless they suggest this themselves).
Adaptation
If materials for drawing are not available, or if adolescents want a more active experience: They can create a temporary map in their space by using props that represent different locations, and/or by representing those different locations themselves, standing in different locations of the space.
Environment
Indoor or outdoor space. Quiet.
Supplies
- At least one large piece of chart paper for every group of adolescents (or something else for them to draw on).
- At least one pen, pencil or marker for each adolescent.
Improvise
Instead of drawing, use a collage or any other visual materials to create the maps.
Adolescents can make additional maps of their communities and surroundings, create detailed maps of smaller areas within their community (such as their home or school), or include the wider surroundings.
Create a map of an imaginary place, either a place imagined by the adolescents or a fictional place described in a story.
Create a map that shows changes or improvements that adolescents would like to make in their community.
Create a map to give adults a tour of the community through the experiences and perspectives of adolescents.
Create a map to orient new adolescents to the community, showing important places that they should know about.
Continue
Adolescents can work on new drafts of their maps, practice their drawing or other art skills, and exhibit their work. Adolescents can refer to their maps and explore:
- How much they know about places that offer them resources and services, and how to access those resources
- What they feel is positive and negative about their community
- Places they would like to explore or learn more about
- Places they would like to improve - For example: unused spaces that they could use as recreation spaces; areas where they encounter conflict that they could try to transform; areas where they encounter hazards and need protective support.
If working with the same circle of adolescents for a long period of time, repeat the activity after a few weeks or months. Explore any changes in their communities, including those linked to changes in their circumstances.
Highlights
Create drawings that describe the environment by working in groups; Map the community. Works well for circles where adolescents can sit together and work on activities as a large group, whether they are just getting to know each other, or already know each other well.
