At the end of the summer of 2015, Civil Innovation Lab organized a workshop on Creativity, Storytelling and Videogame creation for vulnerable children aged 7-13 in Villa Mella, a low-income suburb of Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic.
They learned to imagine, visualize, structure and tell a story complete with a theme, characters, challenges and goals and then transform it into an actual interactive videogame. The online platform Scratch was used for the videogame implementation.
For most of the children this was their first exposure to computers and the actual use of technology to create something original and personal.
The classes were delivered and monitored by a team of 4 instructors, which included a technology specialist, a university graduate on computer game design, a psychologist and a sociology student.
All students completed their own video game, which they presented to their parents, the community and the country's VicePresident at the end of the course. The enthusiasm for the course and the results was so high that it caught the attention of the country's VicePresident, who decided to attend the graduation ceremony and took the time to review their games and compliment their work.