Appreciative Confidence Game

Objective(s) & Context

Identify and address messages that influence confidence.
Encourage group cohesion and collaboration.

Confidence is an individual and subjective phenomenon that can radically affect the degree to which girls and young women feel as though they can assert and realize their own desires, hopes and dreams. It also affects a person’s capacity to collaborate with others. Even though each person has their own individual sense of confidence, it is affected by messages received within the groups or systems to which girls and young women belong.

Duration

60 minutes

Age Group

12 +

Group Size

8–16

Skills

Creative expression, collaboration

Format(s) and Technique(s)

Game

Materials

None

Facilitation Tips

These exercises draw upon Image Theatre, a style of social theatre practice developed by Augusto Boal to support analysis and education amongst community groups facing oppressive circumstances. For information about Image Theatre, as well as the other techniques that comprise Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, check out this website: www.theatreoftheoppressed.org.
Any time you use Image Theatre techniques, invite participants to relax from their poses and then go back to them whenever they feel tired. While this exercise is constructed to examine confidence, the sculpting and discussion prompts described may be used to explore any personal or social phenomena (for example, racism, bullying, poverty, violence, love, family, etc.)

Popular Education Prompts

This exercise can be used as a way of beginning with and affirming participants’ experiences and it also moves into identifying common themes or patterns. Refer to the Self-Esteem Information Sheet in the Amplify Manual to add additional information to the group analysis of sculptures created.

Leading the Activity: Steps to Take

Preparation:

Create a largely empty space, with participants’ chairs and things moved to the sides of the room.

Workshop

This is a three-part exercise.

Part 1: Postcards (10 minutes)

Ask participants to form a circle with everyone facing the outside of (away from) the circle.
Explain that, in a moment, you will ask participants to close their eyes and to count to three, but that on the count of three, everyone will turn around creating a still postcard picture with their bodies of the theme you call out.
Ask participants to turn around and count to three. Call out ONE of the following (just for fun and to warm up):

you on vacation

your response to climate change

your response to valentine’s day, etc.

Repeat for fun. Repeat the exercise but call out: you as your most confident self.
Ask participants to look around at each other and to remember their positions. Ask participants to relax.

Part 2: Group Sculpts (30 minutes)

Stand in a circle.
Ask any volunteers from the group to step into the middle of the circle in their postcard pose of confidence from the previous exercise. Ask for up to 4 volunteers (or about half of the group).
Ask each additional volunteer to add their postcard to the middle, but to find a way to physically connect with the person(s) who are already there, if they are comfortable doing so.
Explain that the image in the middle is a group “picture of confidence.” Ask the remaining group (those not in the sculpt) what they would title the picture. There is no need to pick a title out of those offered but you can if you would like to.
Ask remaining participants to imagine that they can see outside the picture frame of this “picture of confidence” (or use title proposed by group).
Ask group what messages, ideas, beliefs, or behaviours support the reality seen in the “picture of confidence.” Ask three or four participants to volunteer ideas one at a time and to take a position around the “picture of confidence” as “external messages.”
Go around to each “external message” and ask them what their message is to the girls/young/women in the centre “picture of confidence.”
Ask them to come up with a one-sentence message that they are subtly or overtly sending.
Ask those participants not involved in the centre image or the external messages: Who would this message come from in real life? (For example: mother, friend, teacher, peer, father, boss, colleague).
After hearing from each “external message,” ask all of them to say their messages at the same time. Invite the group in the middle to just take in the messages. Tell those involved in the “picture of confidence” to react however they would like to when they hear these messages. Let this continue for about thirty seconds.
Ask those not involved with the centre picture or as external messages to switch positions with the middle “picture of confidence” group to give them a rest.
Thank “external” messages and ask them to relax from their positions.
Ask those not involved in the centre picture to step forward around the middle “picture of confidence” and call out messages that threaten confidence.
Ask those in the middle to exaggerate their response to hearing this message. They can totally change their sculptures based on the messages they hear. Keep this going for up to three external messages.
Thank the group and sit in circle for reflection.

Part 3: Group Discussion (20 minutes)

Invite participants to reflect on:

What was the experience of being in the “picture of confidence” when you were receiving or hearing positive messages?
Have you ever heard messages like the ones you heard in the exercise? Where did they come from?
What was it like to hear the other messages? Where do they come from? What other messages were not mentioned?
What happened to the “picture of confidence” when they were surrounded by negative images?

Debrief

Offer prompts for critical reflection:

What realities or messages support the negative messages that threaten confidence in young girls and women today? One way to visualize this is to “zoom out” further from the first set of negative messages to get at what ideas, beliefs, and behaviours “prop up” or support the negative messages.
What is one thing you can do individually or with a group do build confidence in yourself and in others?

Success Indicators

Participants are: