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WHAT ARE SERIOUS GAMES FOR CHANGE?

“Serious” video games are games designed for a purpose other than pure entertainment, and can provide a virtual reality for a young girl to see the outcome of her choices. With research showing a correlation between identification of players with the characters used to represent them, serious games may influence their real-world decisions.

WHAT IS GAME OF CHOICE, NOT CHANCE ?

It's a serious video game that provides a virtual reality for a young girl to be an active navigator of her avatar’s life, enabling her to experience the simulated outcomes of her choices. A Game of Choice, Not Chance is a USAID-funded pilot program in India targeting urban and peri-urban girls 15-19, that combines the excitement of an interactive story-based video game, the instruction from reproductive health education e-learning tools, with portal features that directly link players to health products and services in real time.

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THE GOAL:
ADVANCE & SUPPORT ADOLESCENT FAMILY PLANNING & REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH BEHAVIORS

Knowledge Matters

The Challenge:

There are few sources of information on fertility awareness and other family planning/reproductive health challenges targeted towards adolescents in India.

The Opportunity:
The game provides safe, confidential and accurate information as well as access points to adolescent health products and services in an approachable and fun format.

Tech as a Learning Tool

The Challenge:
Many girls do not have the agency to refuse sex and negotiate contraception.

The Opportunity:
The game provides an opportunity for girls to have an immersive audio-visual experience to build their confidence to negotiate choices and to ‘try again’ with different outcomes.

Actions and Consequences

The Challenge:
Adolescent pregnancy is on the rise.

The Opportunity:
The game offers consequences from real-life choices, illustration that the adolescents’ actions are tied directly to their choices—and not just elements of chance.

A Platform for Partnerships

The Challenge:
There are a variety of NGO, government, private-sector, and educational initiatives that exist to address adolescent health needs, yet no one portal ties it all together.

The Opportunity:

The game provides a direct-to-consumer gateway for girls to access products and services within the game.

Data is Key

The Challenge:

There is limited available data regarding the complexities and nuances of the decision-making process among adolescents on family planning and reproductive health issues.

The Opportunity:
The game structure itself provides for back end data analytics to capture game play, decision points, choices made and changes to choices.

KEY PLAYERS

DONOR:
U.S. Agency for International Development

PRIME:
Howard Delafield International, LLP (HDI)

COLLABORATING PARTNERS:

Cycle Technologies
Girl Effect
Indusgeeks
Nam ER Technology @VSGI
Vihara Innovation Networks

HOWARD DELAFIELD INTERNATIONAL (LLP) is a women-owned consulting firm founded in 1995 that combines the best practices from behavioral and social sciences with emerging mobile and social technologies, human-centered design, and innovations in communication, marketing, and private sector partnerships to address health and environmental problems of underserved and vulnerable populations throughout the world.

http://www.howard-delafield.com/

NAM ER TECHNOLOGY LLC provides custom AR/VR solutions and services to enhance existing reality with AR/VR game technologies. Nam ER Tech specializes in designing and developing new experiences, pushing the limits of hardware, software, and social connectivity to establish "enhanced reality" experiences at the absolute limit of possibility. Advanced AR/VR interface, interactivity and natural interactions are areas where we excel. Also, Nam ER Tech builds serious/functional games and provides gamified strategies to share the social benefits of games.

GIRL EFFECT is a creative non-profit - experts in media, mobile, brand and international development. We build youth brands and mobile platforms that empower girls to change their lives and we're active in over 60 countries.

Girls, particularly those who are the most vulnerable - from hard to reach communities or humanitarian settings - are rarely involved in research due to inadequate research methods. These either do not reach them directly, or, if they do, they don’t allow them to participate due to the lack of trust or permission from their gatekeepers. But interventions can only be effective if informed by the people they aim to benefit.

Girl Effect wanted to tackle this challenge head on, so created TEGA, a first-of-its-kind smartphone based, peer-to-peer research tool that allows girls in hard-to-reach communities to gather information on the lives of their peers.

CYCLE TECHNOLOGIES is a social impact company focused on women’s reproductive health. It has introduced several technologies designed to help women manage their fertility including the CycleBeads and Dot apps. These technologies have been used widely in low resource settings and undergone both efficacy and usability testing.

The company has extensive experience with technology design and implementation as well as direct-to-consumer marketing and client support for mHealth interventions.

The Game of Choice, Not Chance project is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the terms of the Cooperative Agreement No. 7200AA18CA00046.

US/Global Advisory Board

Sharon Stash, Independent Global Health Consultant
Dolly Oberoi, CEO C2 Technologies
John Tifft, CEO Ambac Assurance UK Limited, London
Shomu Banerjee, Professor Pedagogy, Emory University
Colette Auerswald, MD, MS, Associate Professor, Adolescent Medicine, UC Berkeley, School of Public Health
Rajeeb Satyal, Private Sector Partnership Advisor for South Asia/Australia

Contact: Sylvia Delafield, Co-Director/Founder, Howard Delafield International
Email: info@seriousgames4change.com

India Advisory Board

Priya Jha, India Project Director, Evidence Action
Aparajita Gogoi, Centre for Catalyzing Change C3
Lalita Shankar, Independent Consultant
Dipa Nag Chowdhury, Independent Consultant
Shailja Mehta, DASRA
Anand Sinha, India Country Advisor, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Contact: Lalita Shankar, India County Director, Howard Delafield International
Email: info@seriousgames4change.com

BECOME A SUPPORTING TEAM PLAYER

Game of Choice, Not Chance works with industry leaders and stakeholders to support this work and to provide services and opportunities for young women. Check back soon to see some of the groups with whom we are working.

If you are interested in partnering with this initiative, please email

info@seriousgames4change.com