New Horizons - Enhance cultural competence by playing
New Horizons is a virtual cultural card game that celebrates human diversity across Finland by creating empathetic relationships and forming common grounds to adapt to the new composition of our local populations. New Horizons is in use in Finland at high schools and universities, vocational schools, cultural centres, youth centers, NGOs, and libraries.
Receive the link to all of the game materials by registering!
After registration you can download everything you need for printing and facilitating your own play session with diversophy® New Horizons.
By registering, you receive:
- Facilitation guide
- The complete sets of cards in power point format, optimized for virtual play
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diversophy®New Horizons
diversophy® New Horizons emerged from a JAMK student project formed as a response to the refugee crisis in Finland. The game is intended to serve as a training activity that can stand alone or be an integral part of a larger training program on diversity, global management, and intercultural communication
Why play a game?
Games have long been used as powerful training instruments. They help create working models of human interaction, which enable learners to acquire and apply new knowledge and skills. They are especially useful for sensitive topics as they engage players emotionally in the low-risk environment created by an artificial field of play.
How to play?
Each card features aspects about a different culture and invites players to share their own experiences and ideas. You can play diversophy® in groups of any size as long as you prepare enough cards. Subdivide the group into teams of 4 to 6 and give each group a pack of cards to play with.
Completely virtual
New Horizons is now completely virtual! The games are now optimized for virtual play, such as Zoom and Teams.
Five types of cards
The game empowers those who play it to work and communicate constructively across differences. The game takes players from “ethnocentricity” — being centered in one’s own culture, the way we find ourselves when we first face diversity — to “diversophy”, a state of higher cultural sensitivity and skill.
In their path to improved cultural competence, players respond to five types of cards that make up the deck:
- diversiSMARTS - green: Cards challenge players´factual knowledge about specific cultural topics.
- diversiCHOICE - yellow: Cards put players in intercultural situations that challenge them to make decisions about how best to behave or respond.
- diversiSHARE - blue: Cards enhance communication and teambuilding skills. They encourage discussion by asking players to share something about themselves, their opinions and feelings. They underline the message that we are all different, even in our own cultural groups, and that we can continue to learn from each other.
- diversiRISK - red: Cards put the players in situations that are beyond their control. Some situations are "positive” (+) and some “negative” (—). These cards allow players to experience, in a non-threatening way, how differences can create unexpected benefits or costs.
- diversiGUIDE - white: Cards offer wisdom from different cultures and recommendations that encourage the players to look for opportunities to apply it in their work or life.
For more Information
contact the New Horizons team:
[email protected], School of Business
George Simons International, the diversophy® series
The diversophy® New Horizons game celebrates the present and future human diversity within Finland. The game is the product of ongoing collaboration between students and teachers at JAMK University of Applied Sciences and our partner George Simons International, the originator of the diversophy® series of cultural training games. You can see the over 60 available games and support materials by going to www.diversophy.com.