Hope in Haiti – A long plan, a nuanced experience
WHY I DIDN’T CHOOSE THE OTHER GAMES
NOT ENGAGED WITH NUNAVUT
I played the Nunavut hunting skills game, but found it more aimed at having me, through trial-and-error, “learn” about some hunting information without providing any context or experience. I didn’t see how to make this information meaningful to me.
HOPELESS THIRD WORLD FARMER
I played Third World Farmer but found it hopeless because of the regular, random events that destroyed any work I did and killed off my family members regardless of planning. The game seemed to become a way of telling me how awful someone else’s life was. Yes, I could see why farmers would make dodgy decisions about growing poppies or storing toxic waste to make cash, but I it’s not as if I needed help understanding that anyway. Are third world farmers really hopeless victims? If I feel hopeless about the problem, why would I donate money?
HOPELESS FIRST WORLD SPENDER
I played Spent, and while I could appreciate “living” the challenge of someone earning a low income, I was still separated from the experience because (a) the game saddled me someone else’s unpaid credit card balance and car payments, and (b) a whole month of disasters seems manipulative and unrealistic. Spent was intriguing but it was an exercise of recognizing the traps many people get themselves into. I didn’t feel any connection with the game or see any way to fix the problem. How could I fix anything in one month? The game explained why people play the lottery or make dishonest decisions, but I don’t need to play a game to understand those things. A lack of connection, optimism or seeing some way for my choices to be effective simply switched me off. Are low income earners really hopeless victims? If I feel hopeless about the problem, why would I donate money?
MY TAKE ON “INSIDE THE HAITI EARTHQUAKE”
ENGAGED BY NUANCES
I chose “Inside the Haiti Earthquake” to review, a program that allowed me to act as a survivor, a journalist or an aid worker in Port-au-Prince following the devastating 2010 quake. As the producers note, it’s not a game because it relies on documentary material of real people and their experiences.(1) Like Third World Farmer, and Spent, this simulation also has a message to communicate. Unlike those other programs, however, this simulation is more nuanced. Each role delivered a balance of perspectives: Haitians suffered from the earthquake, panicked during food distributions but also worked to rebuild their own society and sustain their own hopes through religion, song, and bonding together. Haitians volunteered for jobs to help each other.
NO VICTIMS, NO ANGELS, NO DEVILS
Similarly, aid workers were not helpful angels. Their efforts sometimes caused more harm than good. They were sometimes driven by the need to look good to donors. Journalists faced a bewildering situation of chaos where their producers demanded simple story angles. The first time I watched a video segment and was asked to choose my narration, I really wasn’t sure what to say. I can imagine how much more difficult it would be standing in the middle of the pushing and shoving chaos.
BITTERSWEET BUT HOPEFUL
I ran through the simulation six times, twice in each role of survivor, aid worker, and journalist. Instead of turning me off with simplistic victim storylines, the simulation forced me to engage with difficult, heart-rending material that included watching earth movers scooping up rubble and lifeless bodies to dump into trucks. Unlike the other games, I stayed with this one because I didn’t feel helpless. The footage was not all lifeless bodies or rioting Haitians. The breadth of footage and stories brought multiple points of view and a bittersweet sense of Haitians, aid workers and journalists all working in different ways to resolve the situation. Not all Haitians were the same. Not all aid workers were the same. Not all journalists were the same. There were different choices with different results.
COGNITIVE AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING
The experiences taught me on both cognitive and emotional levels. The complications, the challenges and the pockets of resilience left me with hope and continuing curiosity and I played again and again to find all of the different stories. I could test my own assumptions about what a Haitian, an aid worker or a journalist should do. I could discover stories of hope, and song and determination that often don’t make it into 90-second news clips.
REAL-LIFE COMPLEXITY
Perhaps most importantly, in this simulation I didn’t ever really “fail”. I experienced material that might be overwhelming but in a way that let me explore complex ideas about how we can stereotype people as victims, helpers or reporters, and forget the more complex individuals inside them, the competing forces driving them, and the possibilities of understanding each other better and respecting each other more as active participants in order to create more satisfying results for disaster relief.
SOME ISSUES
Was the simulation perfect? No. The biggest impact for me was the first time I played it, thrown into the middle of a disturbing and chaotic experience. On playing multiple times, I often watched the same video footage I had before. To some extent, that’s helpful as I noticed new details. On the other hand, repeating the same narrative segments in the same way can be a little frustrating.
I wondered if there was a danger that some people might play through a scenario and not get helpful information, but when I played through different choices, I realized that the authors eventually forced me into the “message” segment even though it might not fit with the choice I made as a character. I can understand why they did this, but I think there are other mechanisms for doing this. When I wrote a serious game on occupational health and safety, I included a “mentor” character who accompanied the player. The player could still make mistakes and see the results, but the mentor character would reflect on what happened to give proper context.
Would I contribute time or money to disaster relief? The simulation left me far more hopeful, curious and impressed with the nuances than I was with the other games.
BACKGROUND OF “INSIDE THE HAITI EARTHQUAKE”
PART OF A LARGER PROJECT
PTV Productions Inc., a Toronto-based indie production company, developed the simulation(2) along with “Inside Disaster”, a TV documentary series about Red Cross actions after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and Insidedisaster.com, a companion website.(3) “Inside the Haiti Earthquake” won Best in Show and Best in Category at the 2011 Horizon Interactive Awards.(4)
PLANNING YEARS BEFORE THE QUAKE
The project began years before the earthquake. In 2007 Nadine Pequeneza, an experienced docudrama producer, negotiated with the Red Cross for almost a year to cooperate on a documentary about disaster relief.(5) In 2009, the simulation team gathered to plan a three-way simulation that examined the worlds of the survivor, the aid worker, and the media.(6) They knew they would follow the TV documentary team, the web team and the Red Cross into a relief operation, but they didn’t know where or when.(7)
CREATING COMPLEX MOMENTS OF DOUBT
Three hours after the 2010 earthquake, the simulation director joined the TV crew and the Red Cross in Haiti, and worked independently with a camera and laptop to capture stories about local people and culture that mainstream reporters ignored.(8) The simulation team reviewed 200 hours of film and 1500 photos from their work and the TV documentary, and the writer interviewed the director of the TV series about the challenging interactions among survivors, media, and relief workers,(9) wanting to show interweaving conflicts among a journalist who must choose story angles without bias, a survivor who must decide whether to help others or give up, and an aid worker who must decide whether to collaborate, consult with Haitians, or go it alone.(10) The director wanted players to experience doubt, chaos, and shock, and the producer wanted to encourage “real life” learning through mistakes.(11)
SPEAKING TO THREE AUDIENCES
The intended audience for the simulation includes donors who want accountability, humanitarians who show up unprepared, and media who rush stories that reinforce stereotypes.(12) The team expects distribution of the simulation through blogs, and educational and humanitarian websites.(13)
SECURING FUNDING FROM PUBLIC SOURCES
The simulation received funding from TV Ontario, Canada Media Fund, Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund, Canadian International Development Agency, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation – Tax Credit Program.(14)
CUBE ANALYSIS OF “INSIDE THE HAITI EARTHQUAKE”
Based on the “Cube” described in ETEC 522.(15)
1. Market type
The simulation would be suitable for higher education, media studies, and training programs for humanitarians and journalists. The program uses disturbing and graphic footage and aims to explore complex ideas so K-12 would be out.
2. Offering Type
The simulation is pre-packaged content ready for consumption over the web.
3. Buyer
The simulation is freely available. It could be used directly by learners or assigned by a teacher or learning authority as part of a curriculum. It’s most likely to be assigned by teachers as it is low/no cost and easily available.
4. Global target
The simulation is in English and available through a website. The product likely targets wired Anglophone countries (Canada, USA, Australia, UK, Ireland, NZ). The footage from Haiti is sometimes in French with English subtitles. It’s possible that the product could be delivered to European countries with English language skills that sub-title vs. dub entertainment (European Union, S. Africa).
5. Market status
The Anglophone wired market can import content and infrastructure freely and can likely handle the required bandwidth for streaming video. As this product is made available through a website, importing is as simple as web access and proper firewall settings.
6. Competition
This product only requires web access and so would work with existing systems used by teachers as well those used by the audience described by the simulation team: donors, humanitarians, and media. The product uses relatively short sessions for each use and could be combined with instructor-led learning or e-learning. The product has high production values and focuses on a particular world event, providing a unique experience that would be hard to replace at zero cost.
A CHEAPER WAY TO DO BRANCHING SCENARIOS
Check out this simple branching scenario using a comic book style: “Connect with Haji Kamal”.
http://blog.cathy-moore.com/2010/05/elearning-example-branching-scenario/
REFERENCES
(2) http://www.ptvproductions.ca/index.php/about
(3) http://www.ptvproductions.ca/index.php/projects/inside-disaster/web
(4) http://insidedisaster.com/haiti/experience
(5) http://insidedisaster.com/haiti/the-filmmakers
(14) http://insidedisaster.com/haiti/about
(15) https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec522sept11/section2/m3-cube-introductions/
Karen Jones 1:03 pm on October 9, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
What a thorough and comprehensive post, David.
You’ve certainly highlighted key features that should be present in games targeted at adults, especially the incorporation of a varied perspective that doesn’t belabour the obvious, and changes with the user/character.
Way to set the bar higher!
KJ