For our October game night we tested and played Masti the Social Entrepreneurship Game by Bharat Damani. Ashoka Changemakers has declared the game as a Learning Pacesetter in a Lego Foundation sponsored international competition.
The game aims to provide an eye opener to the student, the employed, the business owner, the haves and the have-nots on what life is all about and how one should blend personal and societal goals, ultimately focusing on what each one can do and contribute to the society. It also acts as a guide to social entrepreneurs on how to take their ventures forward. In summary, by playing the game a few times, the following objectives would be achieved:
- Understand the benefits and limitations of a job and business.
- Create awareness of what is life all about (not just making money).
- Create awareness about social enterprises and the work they do.
- Clear some misconceptions about social enterprises.
- Understand the enablers and inhibitors for social enterprises.
- Educate how to succeed in a social enterprise.
- Spread the importance of working for and contributing to the society.
Our development staff played several rounds of Masti with Bharat supervising from India. We all had a good time trying to gain Rating Scores, Well Being and Society Index scores besides keeping our investments up and running. All of the incident cards exposed players to true to life events, such as divorce and choosing what type of college to send children to.
We at ILS will be playing this game a few more times as it became obvious from our 4 hours that there’s some depth here that can be explored. A big thank you to Bharat Damani for teleconferencing in from India so early in the morning!