Cooperation or competition?
Peace learning sees the world not as a zero-sum game, where A can only win if B loses, but as a game with an always-positive outcome, from which every team can emerge a winner. Cooperation has the enormous potential to foster participation and stimulate creativity, whereas excessive competition leads to confrontation, aggressive attitudes and exclusion.
Although we are by nature competitive, we are quick to forget that cooperation is also part of who we are, and that our greatest achievements have often been the result of a process of cooperation within our society.
Cooperative games have the merit of developing respect for each other, trust (having confidence, trusting others, deserving confidence) and team spirit.
Contents of the game collection
This free 11-page document contains:
- an introduction to the benefits of cooperation and cooperative games
- some thirty detailed cooperative games, classified by type (confidence-building; based on non-verbal communication, developing team spirit in the face of obstacles, etc.).
- for each type of game: a general description and tips for inventing your own activity.
- suggestions for making the most of the debriefing moment
Download the Collection of cooperative games.
This educational tool has been developed by Grains of Peace and Service Civil International (SCI), Switzerland branch.