Chairs and Food

Instructions
How to Play:

The Game: Materials - 10 chairs Introducing the Activity - Explain to the group that the line of chairs represents the perfect Canada: 10 people, 10 chairs- an equal distribution of resources and that each person represents 10% of the population. Facilitating the Activity 1. Line up the 10 chairs in the front of the group. 2. Ask for 10 volunteers and have them sit in the chairs. 3. Ask the class is this the reality; an equal distribution of chairs? 4. After everyone has responded, demonstrate the reality: - One person, the poorest person, gets no chair; they are asked to sit on the floor. - One person, the richest person, gets 5.5 chairs. (Get 4 people up to vacate their chairs, one left sitting gets to spread over 5 and put their feet up on 1/2 of the 6 th chair, pushing someone onto half a chair). - Next comes the top 20 and 30% of people, just below the richest guy. They remove someone else from their chair and together share three chairs. - Now we have 1 1/2 chairs and 6 people to share them; these are the middle class that are 60% of the population. Depending on the group and issues of safety you can try to get them to share the chairs or at least touch it, so people get a sense of the numbers. 5. Ask your volunteers to sit down and thank them for their participation. 6. Open a discussion of the fairness of this distribution by asking what the group thinks a chair represents in Canada. Write a list of responses. The list should include things like: health, home, food, water, education, transportation, and clothing.*

Quick Info

Covid RiskLow

Time Required20 minutes to 30 minutes

Age RangeAny age

Number of LeadersAny

Number of Participants5 to 10

Game Types

Educational

Game Added By

Game Management