"Life capital" for blind youth

Our country's focus on European integration, and the relocation of young people with severe visual impairments to European countries, where they found temporary protection from the war in Ukraine, requires a high level of their socialization and ability to integrate into society.

Our project offers an adaptation of the simulation game "Life Capital" for visually impaired and blind young people.

The goal of the game is to form the basics of financial culture and an understanding of the value of creating their own family capital in young people with severe visual impairments, as a guarantee of a decent life and the realization of the rights and freedoms of each person in society.

After we got acquainted with the game and the rules, we had doubts about whether it was possible to adapt it for completely blind people. At some point, we pessimistically thought that this was beyond our capabilities. Later, we decided to take a risk and divide our project into three stages. During the reporting period, we implemented the first stage of the project. It was dedicated specifically to identifying the possibilities of adapting the game and how relevant and interesting the game is for young people with severe visual impairments. We wanted to get feedback from future players on how they see the playing field, the legends of the players, their role in the game and the game process itself.

25 project participants from different cities of Ukraine met in September in Bulgaria at the youth camp "Sunny Land" together with an experienced trainer, one of the authors of the game. Thanks to the enthusiasm and charisma of our trainer, the host of the game captivated our participants. They were ready to play every day, despite the complexity and duration of the training. After all, knowledge is consolidated only through practice. And the game format is always more interesting for learning.

First, a team of guys with residual vision got acquainted with the game, and a team of blind participants watched the game. Then we held a game for blind players, in which the participants of the first team were assistants.

During the game, we received recommendations from the participants on what needs to be done to make players with vision problems independent in the game, so that the game is accessible to them.

And these recommendations are real and feasible.

We have difficult tasks ahead! But we believe that thanks to enthusiasm, faith in success and your support, we will be able to implement the second and third stages of our project. We will adapt the playing field, prepare leading leaders and create Life Capital clubs in different regions of Ukraine, where young people will be able to practice financial literacy skills in a safe format, which will be useful to them in real life.

• Feedback.docx (DOCX)