6/21/2011
By Nita Bhalla
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The world may have forgotten the massive floods that inundated Pakistan almost a year ago, but a game application ('app') is trying to keep up awareness of the crisis among an untapped group of people – Facebook and Smartphone users. "Relief Copter" is an effort by a small, Islamabad-based media firm to highlight the plight of survivors of last year's disaster, which decimated villages from the far north to the deep south and disrupted the lives of over 18 million people. The game – featuring a relief helicopter that drops crates of aid items which must be navigated to various points – is available free on Nokia, iphone and social networking site Facebook, and has generated tens of thousands of downloads since its launch in October. But the app goes one step further. As well as a slideshow, after the completion of each level there is a photograph and a "flood fact" about the disaster, which is seen as one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent times – bigger than the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in terms of displacement, crop and infrastructure damage, livelihood loss and recovery needs.
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"When we were designing the app, it seemed like the floods had completely washed away the world's conscience, no one seemed to take notice," said Mohsin Afzal, CEO of Werplay, developers of the game. "You have a captive audience that is engaged, and you can use games as a medium to raise awareness and funds for a good cause. For me, it was a no-brainer," he told AlertNet by phone from Islamabad. The impact of the floods – which submerged one fifth of the country, left 11 million homeless, killed nearly 2,000 and destroyed millions of acres of crops – still lingers almost a year on, aid workers say. United Nations officials say while all the displaced have returned home or resettled elsewhere, many do not have the means to rebuild their destroyed homes or restart their livelihoods.
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Donor funding has been slow for recovery needs and around 30 percent of the almost $2 billion appealed for by the U.N. and Pakistan government has not been met. Aid workers say the lack of funding, as in many disasters, is down to donor fatigue, the global financial crisis and a lack of awareness about the challenges faced by survivors. Afzal, 28, who returned to Pakistan last July after completing an MBA at Berkeley, agrees. "When the Haiti quake hit, and it was all over the news in America, there was so much coverage and outpouring of sympathy and aid," he said. "In complete contrast, practically no one in America knows about Pakistan floods." Together with a few of his friends, Azfal founded Werplay and now leads a young, dynamic team of 15, including a 17-year-old who is behind the development of the app's facebook version of "Relief Copter".
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The app has hit 90,000 downloads on the Nokia Ovi store, 900 on the iphone's app store and 600 people play the facebook version, said Afzal, adding that downloads have been made from over 100 countries – most from neighbouring India. "The mainstream media has nearly forgotten about the recent floods in Pakistan, although scores of people are still struggling with the aftermath of this terrible disaster," said one reviewer on the iphone app store. "Downloading this app is a direct and fulfilling way to show that you still care." But while "Relief Copter" may have generated awareness, the main intention of Afzal and his team – to raise funds from the purchase of the game – has failed. The iphone version had only generated around $50 before Werplay decided to make it a free app.
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"What we wanted to accomplish with Relief Copter didn't happen in terms of the funds that we wanted to raise," he said. "App discovery is a big issue and it's so easy for our small game to get lost in the millions of apps out there ... we didn't have much of a marketing budget and few were willing to support us with promotion, including the aid agencies." Afzal said he approached relief groups working on flood relief in Pakistan such as Oxfam, Save the Children, the U.N. agency for children (UNICEF) and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), but with no luck. "I still think this kind of fund raising can work. People easily spend 99 cents on an app, so why not provide them with an opportunity to spend that 99 cents on something that does good. They are going to get more value out of it," he said. "We were too small to do it on our own, without support, but it can work,” he added. “In the end, we hope we have at least educated people about the floods."

IRIN
12/28/2010
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A new video game being launched by the United Nations aims to provide young people with accurate and reliable information about HIV prevention, while educating, entertaining and promoting healthy behaviour. The computer game “Fast Car: Travelling Safely around the World,” launched by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), targets young people over the age of 16 and is available in English, French and Russian. While racing on circuits on five different continents and virtually visiting some of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites, players will receive information on existing prevention practices, treatment and care for HIV and AIDS. “The importance of the game consists in providing young people with information materials on HIV and AIDS that can be widely distributed through communication channels in order to help them to gain an accurate understanding of these issues and preventive practices,” the Paris-based agency stated in a news release.
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UNESCO notes that HIV-related issues can be a difficult topic of conversation, both for children and adults. “Children may worry about parents’ disapproval and have fears about the risk of becoming infected with HIV,” says the agency. “Parents,” it adds,” are often shy, lack accurate information about HIV and AIDS, or do not have sufficient skills to speak about prevention with their children, and teachers frequently assume that parents will talk with children at home.” Empowering young people to protect themselves from HIV is one of the priority areas of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), which notes that young people aged 15 to 24 account for two out of every five new HIV infections globally. This means worldwide almost 3,500 young people are infected with HIV every day. Most young people still do not have access to the information, skills, services or social support required to enable them to prevent HIV infection, according to UNAIDS

The characters in the game speak Sheng, a blend of English and Swahili popular among urban youth
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NAIROBI, 30 July 2009 (PlusNews) - At the community centre in Mukuru, a slum in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, teenagers spend hours engrossed in a video game, but they are not battling other-worldly forces with super-human weapons; instead, they are finding their way through a familiar-looking city, trying to negotiate real-life situations and learn how to avoid HIV infection.
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"Pamoja Mtaani", Swahili for "Together in the Hood", is the first multi-player PC video game to try to teach young people how to avoid HIV infection. Players assume the identity of one of five characters who find themselves car-jacked in a matatu (minibus taxi) and attempt to recover their stolen goods and save an injured woman. Through a series of sub-plots, the players are put into positions where the decisions they make can put them at risk of contracting or preventing HIV infection.
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"You are able to relate to the behaviour of any one of the characters in the video game and you are able to discard bad behaviour … [such as] using drugs because you can actually see drug abuse leads that particular character into acquiring HIV due to recklessness," said Perpetua Nduku, one of the young people at the Mukuru community centre, which is visited by about 35 teens a day - 50 a day at the weekend.
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The game targets young people aged between 15 and 19 and focuses on five key behaviours that can reduce HIV infections among youth: delaying the onset of sexual activity, abstinence, avoiding multiple sex partners, correct and consistent condom use, and uptake of voluntary counselling and testing services.
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Local hip-hop artists provide the authentically local, urban soundtrack, and the characters in the game speak Sheng, a mix of Swahili and English commonly used by urban youth.
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An in-your-face HIV prevention campaign
"I can now negotiate condom use with my boyfriend and I can tell any other girl who has never been here how to do it because the language used [in the video game] is the same language I would normally use with my boyfriend or with any other person," said 20-year-old Grace Wangeci.
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The game was developed by Warner Bros Entertainment in partnership with the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria recently gave Warner Bros Entertainment a business excellence award for Pamoja Mtaani.
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Launched in December 2008, the game is available at four sites in Nairobi; following a review in June 2009, PEPFAR and its local partners now plan to extend the game around the capital and country-wide.
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Job Akuno, technical adviser for comprehensive prevention programmes at Hope Worldwide Kenya, which runs the community centre in Mukuru, says young people in the area have embraced the game and learned from it, underlining the need to find more engaging ways to inform the youth about HIV.
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"Using the video games provides a platform for reaching out to the youth in a creative way and which is enjoyable to them," he said, adding that the game's features had broader messages, such as teaching young women to stand up for their rights and improve their self-esteem.
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Kenya's national HIV/AIDS strategy considers youth aged between 15 and 24 "most-at-risk"; young women have an HIV prevalence of 6.1 percent, four times higher than their male counterparts. Studies have shown that although knowledge of HIV/AIDS among the youth is high, many young people continue to engage in risky behaviour, such as having multiple sexual partners and inconsistent condom use.

Definitely food for thought! I am a high school English and French teacher who has traveled to Haiti on an educational mission trip. My students in the Midwest expressed lots of interest in the economic and political obstacles their counterparts in Haiti face. Over the years I have conducted service learning units with schools in Haiti and South Africa in conjunction with novels that my students have read. Gaming is absolutely unfamiliar to me, but my students of course are fluent in it. I have been looking for ways to make my students' learning real. I will check out "Darfur is Dying" and "Food Force." Thank you for the suggestion.

Below is a game revolving around immigration to the United States: http://www.icedgame.com/

Check out

Ayiti: The Cost of Life at
http://www.unicef.org/voy/explore/rights/explore_3142.html