Cambiamo gioco
[Let’s change play]

Summary

• The project falls within a group of programmes designed to promote awareness and psychological wellbeing. It goes to the root of the social process of comparison, which is how images of competition between women are formed and perpetuated, marginalising and separating them as a result.

• The project provokes active reflection among the group and encourages the girls to strive to be better by comparing their results with those of others. The project has been designed to have a trickle-down effect with a wide range of indirect beneficiaries, including the ambassadors’ classmates, their friends from outside school, their families, the school itself and the teaching body.

• Fifteen girls – one for each municipality of Rome – were offered the chance to become ambassadors for the project, which was split into ten three-hour sessions, in their local municipality.

• Initially, the girls took part in an art-therapy theatre workshop including games designed to boost self-esteem and trust in themselves and others. The findings from the theatre workshop were elaborated on in the second phase of the programme, as part of a multimedia workshop in which computer webcams and smartphones were used to create a short film. The workshop included playwriting, filming, editing and post-production and focused on issues around gender, stereotypes and the depiction of positive competition models. Role models that were known to the girls were used in the activities (actresses, directors and screenwriters).

• The programme came to an end with two presentation ceremonies for the young ambassadors, while the work was shared with the teaching body, local institutions and parents.