Christian Aid & CAFOD: Trading Trainers Game

This game highlights the situation facing many poor countries that manufacture trainers – where working hard for a living does not equate to earning a fair amount. The aim of this game is to help the players understand how it is still possible to be poor even if you work hard for a living.

The game is set in an imaginary Latin American shanty town, where small family businesses are making training shoes to sell to the local market. Their aim is to make ends meet. However the country itself is in economic crisis and inflation is rocketing. How will they survive? It is highly imaginative and participative; the investment of time needed to set up this activity will be amply repaid through learning and motivation.

The game needs a minimum 16 people, and our room at least the size of a classroom and preferably larger. A free 14-page booklet is available online, containing exceptionally full instructions, background information and photocopyable resources (including money and even two-dimensional trainers). Time required: One and a half hours, including introduction and debriefing. Beyond this, resources will needs to be set up in advance. Because of these factors, the activity would sit well in an off-timetable conference-style event, but probably not in a standard length of class period.

https://www.christianaid.org.uk/schools/trading-trainers-game