NYCCC
Sustainable Development Games: Access Your Privilege

The SDG games kicked-off with opening remarks by Hans, who is the chairperson of the Namibian Youth Coalition on Climate Change (NYCCC) and continued with an explanation of what the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals are. It was mentioned by Hans that Namibia and the rest of the World hope to achieve these goals by the year 2030. 

The first game of the year was primarily focused on the SDG objective number ten - on Reducing Inequalities. Each of the participants were handed a small piece of paper and instructed to visualise the circumstances that it read. Once each participant was able to be empathetic towards the role they had to assume, the participants were informed to step outside to commence the Privilege Walk. 

 How privileged are we really? – During the Privilege walk, Hans posed a series of questions to the participants where they were instructed to think about them from the perspective of a role play. The participants were told to make a chain and for every question that they answered positively they were to respond by taking a step forward whilst still holding hands. As the Privilege Walk was concluded-it was evident that the participants were no longer standing in a straight line! The circumstances the participants found themselves in was seen to have lasting effects on the lively-hood of the people that they portrayed. 

Now what? – It can be concluded from the Privilege Walk that the circumstances surrounding ones being is often-times a fundamental factor to determining the way of life for that person. An example of this was shown through the Privilege Walk as a participant was told to portray the life of a Chief Executive Office whereas, at the other end of the spectrum, another participant was told to portray the life of a single mother staying in the Havana location. 

Taking Corrective action– Hans questioned the group of participants on what their experiences were by having them answer according to the people they portrayed. It was evident by the end of the discussion that inequality exists in many different forms, for example: socio-economic factors, gender, race, country of origin, and sexual orientation. The result was that most people understood what it truly meant to be privileged and that when one is privileged one should use that privilege towards the betterment of human-kind.