Celebrating its 16^th year, Felis Awards, a prominent national award ceremony that celebrates creativity with impact in the advertising and marketing world, announced this year’s winners last night.

Developed by Leyla Bayram Primary School students and in partnership with the game company ROOT, "Inter Universe Adventure"  game was awarded with an achievement award in the category of "Felis Global - Social Responsibility and Sustainability".

Funded by Save the Children Finland, the game is aimed at school children aged 7 to 11 to prevent physically and verbally abusive and harmful behaviours towards each other and to help them cope with all forms of bullying in a fun and adventurous way. It also aims to strengthen ties between the host and refugee communities.

Save the Children Türkiye’s Project Manager Burak Anadolu, underlining the involvement of Leyla Bayram Primary School students to the game’s  development stage stated that the game was designed in four languages, with content available in Turkish, Arabic, Persian and English for a greater reach.

“All individuals aged 7 and above can easily play our game. It is not only educational and fun; but instils goodness in children at early age.” he added.

Ceren Öztulca, the founder of ROOT, explained that “Speaking of educational games, the first thing that comes to mind, apart from defining the problem, is to offer the player appropriate and meaningful options for their age group. While doing so, the most significant thing is to create a game that is fun.” Öztulca continued as follows:

“The most efficient way to do this was to design the game with its target audience, namely school-aged children. School-aged children had a say in the visual design, regions, and characters of Inter Universe Adventure and even came up with its name. “

The game can be played in three different ways, with “board game”, “cut-and-paste" and “digital” versions. All versions are available on www.evrenlerarasimacera.com, the Inter Universe Adventure website.

Over 1,000 board games have been distributed to schools and various NGOs, and an additional 1,000 will be shared with numerous families, schools and non-governmental organizations in the coming days.

About Peer Bullying

PISA 2018 results state that 23 percent of students in the OECD countries were bullied few times. The report highlights that students exposed to the situation experienced negative emotions and had difficulty in establishing a meaningful bond and a sense of belonging with the school. In Türkiye’s case, the report noted 24 percent of the students were exposed to bullying at least a few times.

LINKS

Inter Universe Adventure website

Inter Universe Adventure tutorial video

Inter Universe Adventure tutorial video (Arabic)

Inter Universe Adventure tutorial video (Farsi)

CONTACT

AYLİN ALPAGUT

Advocacy and Communications Coordinator

aylin.alpagut@savethechildren.org