A Game Perpetuating Gender Equality
Mobile phones are an integral part of our life today. According to a study by mobileinsurance.com, an average person spends about 90 minutes every day on their phone. This amounts up to 23 days in a year and about 3.9 years of an average person’s life, spent staring at their mobile phones.
Gaming is one of the activities that has attracted many to spend several hours on the phone. Taking this concept forward and recognising the urgent need to address behaviours and mindsets that lead to perpetuation of gender-discriminatory practices, Vodafone Foundation and Girl Rising came together to connect with adolescents and youth using the power of storytelling. This led to the development of Girl Rising Game, a unique android-based game that leverages popular Match-3 puzzle game genre to create awareness about such practices and empower users to lead change. The game was developed under Vodafone Foundation’s ‘Solutions for Good’ initiative that develops technology solutions for addressing social issues and creating large scale social impact. NASSCOM Foundation is the Principal implementation partner for the initiative.
Youth icon Arjun Kapoor digitally launched the Girl Rising Game on June 26th ahead of his 33rd birthday. The actor presented the Girl Rising Game as a ‘gift’ to his followers, urging them to challenge gender roles, and question age-old beliefs which normalised gender-based discrimination.
Girl Rising Game has adapted and gamified four real stories from ‘Girl Rising’s flagship film ‘Woh Padhegi, Who Udegi’ to inculcate a better understanding of the barriers to education, and of the commonly held and revered beliefs that fester gender-based discrimination.
Speaking on his motivation behind supporting this cause, Arjun Kapoor said “It is unfortunate that so many girls and women in our country still have to fight to have the same opportunities as their male counterparts. It is important that every individual contributes towards eradicating gender discrimination. Ending gender-based discrimination is something that I firmly believe in, the next time you or anyone else spots a form of gender-based discrimination, try to stop it. Achieving gender equality is not the responsibility of women alone; men must play their part too.”
In its initial phase, the Girl Rising Game has released 4 playable stories, and has more in the offing due to be released later in the year. Game is available to download on Vodafone Game store, Social App Hubs and Google Play Store.
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