ESC: Play the youth: design games to activate Skills Development

Tou Play is an NGO based in the south Italy at the city Palo del Colle and, close to the city of Bari (Italy) where we have another two offices, it was ccreated after a Contamination Lab EU action of both universities of Bari and was created with the aim of transmit culture and history to youth people and tourist in a new way more interactive and enjoyable, far of the traditional forms of education. Using as tools the group games, exploration and non-formal education (annexes), promoting integration, interaction and the discovery of new cultures. We work with and for youth people, adults, kids and turists from different background, socioeconomic status, nationality, ethnicity, ideology, age… The vision is to create a society more interested in the continuous learning of the world and cultures that surround them, creating a more integrative community and with a deeper knowledge of the different realities that coexist. Allowing, through our activities, the empowerment, critical thinking, human sensitivity, real learning and personal empowerment of ours participants. Supporting them to achieve their full potential in professional, personal and social life. Our organisation has developed a Successful Crowdfunding in 2016 to develop a meta-book about Puglia’s Castles and created different Alternate Reality Games formats to discover our own region. We’ve participated to many and various creative entrepreneurship workshop and now is following different Social Innovation and Urban Regeneration projects. Since our first experience with Eurosud and Spirit Of Freedom, 2 local European Organisations, we’ve found out that the better way to change the world is to start changing neighbourhood. That’s why we are following the EU path, trying to import best practice from other organisations and incoming partners’s experiences and to export our enthusiasm, experience in game fields and management. Our main aim is to bind together tradition and innovation to educate and promote social values. Tou.Play is a Game Designers ; Storytellers collective, bonded with local culture and territory. We use games to tell stories and different cultures, creating gamefied experiences for museums, castles and old city centers, using them as a tool for social integration The idea is simple: match local culture and tourism through games. Now the organization has an office in Bari University, working with BaLAB, a contamination lab where young people share their ideas to start new projects, aiming to innovation and new occupations. Tou.Play team consists of 11 key members, developing new game experiences for local schools and kids. Tou.Play trainers started a formative process with teachers from both high schools and middle schools , introducing new non-formal education methodologies