Dominoes

(download activity pdf)

(taken from All Different All Equal, Council of Europe)

Issues addressed
Any you wish to work on.

Aims
To help people get to know each other. To raise awareness that in a group there are differences between individuals as well as things which are held in common.

Time
10 mins

Group size
Any

Age
Any

Preparation
No special materials. A list of possible features to suggest if the players can't think of any themselves (if you want to focus specifically on religion this could be features of the religion which might be similar across a number of beliefs). A large space.

Instructions

1. Ask one person in the group to start by thinking of two personal characteristics which they then announce to the group, such as "'on my left side I am a girl, on my right side I have two brothers'.
2. Then call for someone else in the group who shares one of those characteristics to hold the first person's right or left hand (according to the characteristic they have in common) and then add a characteristic of their own on the free side. For example, 'On my right I am a girl, on my left I have brown eyes'.
3. Get all the members of the group to take a turn so that in the end you have a circle in which everybody is linked to everybody else.
4. If a stated characteristic is not shared by someone else in the group and the domino can not be matched ask players to negotiate another feature so that the chain is continued.

Tips for facilitators
The characteristics given above are only examples; any person can choose or start with any feature they like, whether it is visible or not.

It is important that the members of the group actually establish physical contact, this encourages a stronger group feeling. The way the contact is made can be to touch heads, to put arms around each other, to put feet together etc. Players can stand, sit or lie down.

If the suggested characteristics tend to be repetitive, you may encourage participants to come up with new ones. It is also best if the characteristics are not very simple. You could encourage the group to say visible characteristics, invisible or personal ones or others related to a topic, e.g. how they think/feel about minorities, religion, gender etc.

This game must be played quickly so people don't get bored while they are waiting to match up.

You may wish to participate in the activity to help break down barriers.