| Aim | The purpose of the exercise is to awaken the ability to empathize with other people, to understand different ways of acting and solving problems. |
| Trainee profile | The trainer should have conflict resolution and negotiation skills. |
| Learning Objectives | To develop empathic thinking skills
Τo improve the ability of understanding different ways of behaviour To develop psychological and social imagination |
| n° participants | Between 6 and 12 people |
| Duration | 45 minutes |
| Materials | n° 1 chair (if possible) for each participant, sheets of paper and pens |
| Preparation | Print out the following 3 stories:
Story 1. Charles is studying at a technical high school. His brother is visually impaired and Charles has come up with the idea that it would be nice to build new small movement sensors that make certain sounds when they spot someone approaching, instead of keeping the common ones that beep, in such a boring way. Charles wonders what kind of sounds may be nice to hear if you are visually impaired at home. Story 2. Gregory would very much like to help people with disabilities. He is very empathetic and believes that society thrives when people help each other. He is thus looking for opportunities (job, volunteering, etc.) to become an accompanying and supporting person for elderly visually impaired people. He is making research on communication and social skills to acquire in perspective of this opportunity. What competences should he work on? Story 3. Hania is about to start a new job position in the administration of a VET provider working with visually impaired people. For her curiosity, she wonders how colours and tones are perceived by people with visual impairment and how they could have conveyed them. The first thing that has come to her mind is temperature: white is cold, red is warm, but this distinction is too simplified in her opinion. She then realizes that maybe textures can do the case, assigning, for instance, smoothness to white, roughness to grey, sharpness to red. What other concepts could we identify for colour associations that people with visual impairment can visualize? |
| Implementation | 1. Have the group sit on the chairs or on the ground.
2. Ask participants to give a brief introduction of themselves, as in a story. 3. Once all participants have introduced themselves, read the first story. 4. Ask participants to form groups of 3. They can stay in their respective positions as long as the groups have the space to discuss without distractions. 5. Provide pen and paper to the groups and tell them they have 5 minutes to continue and find an ending to the story, imagining the protagonist’s actions and feelings. It is important to point out that any version of the ending is equally real and possible. The time allowance is set to 5 minutes because the creation of the ending should be mainly emotional, triggered by their first thoughts and associations. 6. Once they are ready, ask the first group to start narrating the story they created. Other participants should refrain from giving comments. 7. Repeat step 6 with the other groups. 8. After all ending have been told, start an open conversation on the story endings, on the protagonist’s actions, and on the feeling that ending activates on us. While conversing, ensure that the participants respect each other. 9. Repeat the activity with another story. 10. Repeat the activity with the third story if the time allows it. Priority should be given to the quality of the narration and the discussion after the story ends, which can be emotional. |
| Debriefing | The reflection session is in step 8 of the implementation. |
| Tips and hints | Try to maintain and foster an atmosphere of tolerance and recognition of different types of people’s emotional reactions. |
| Added value | Projection exercises are also a form of self-presentation. Participants in the exercise, through suggestions for story endings, discover their own mental and emotional preferences.
Emotional security is key to fulfil the principles of tolerance and empathy in the discussion.
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