Peace Please

The Peace Please game, and the guide that accompanies it, are developed to increase awareness of personal actions on group dynamics as well as provide tools and methods that can contribute to bringing a shift towards a culture based on nonviolent actions and principles that create peace. 

It is developed for organisations and collectives, with the intention to help begin to see what’s not working in the working environment. Each organisation has an internal culture – ideas, values, customs, and particular social behaviours – which are accepted and expected. Being aware of that, members of the organisation can investigate the elements of their organisational culture, and compare these with the values, ideas and behaviours that are part of the Culture of Peace. 

A Culture of Peace is an integral approach to preventing violence and violent conflicts, and an alternative to the culture of war and violence, and to “business as usual”.

Peace Please introduces players to a Culture of Peace by letting them discuss challenges that can be experienced in each of its eight areas and possible responses to them. By playing the game it becomes clear how one can put a Culture of Peace into practice with everyday actions in the work environment.  

The areas of a Culture of Peace may seem hard to contribute to, so we have translated them into the context of organisations. In this way, we hope that a ‘big’ and somewhat abstract political concept such as the Culture of Peace becomes more tangible and within reach. 

The overall aim of the game is to create a conversation between players about developing a Culture of Peace within their organisation, reflecting on how they would like to respond to different kinds of challenges they may face. Using the reflection questions in the Guide you can evaluate your learning experience while playing the game and self-assess your progress in developing  competences for a Culture of Peace.