This session is based on a module developed by Elis Monroy from Subversiones collective for the Voces de Mujeres project.
Ask participants to choose a partner from the group, and to then find a quiet space for them to talk.
Once participants are situated with their partners, ask them to share with each other their answers to the following questions:
As the trainer, you can add or change the questions as see fit – the goal is to ask questions that are likely to bring up information or anecdotes that could be a bit embarrassing or funny, and to talk about privacy with participants. There are more personal questions you can use, but be careful which ones you choose depending on your context – you don’t want to make participants feel uncomfortable.
Once participants are done sharing their answers with one another, have them choose another pair to combine with (there should now be four participants in each group)
In the new groups they have formed, ask participants to introduce the partner they worked with during the first round, sharing with the new team members their answers to all the questions.
Once the groups of four have all introduced one another’s stories, you can now ask participants to join with another group (there should now be eight participants in each group) – they should now repeat over again the process from Step 4.
Ask participants how they felt during the exercise. Some examples of issues which participants might raise could include:
A participant might have shared something because they knew the person they started the activity with at the beginning, or because they felt comfortable in that moment - but they didn’t anticipate how the rules of the activity would evolve.
A participant might have noticed that her partner told one of her stories incorrectly.
Close the activity by talking about privacy, and how sometimes people agree to the Terms of Service of an online platform without it being clear what the “rules of the game” are, and how they might change over time. Talk also about consent, and how a person may sometimes (for instance) agree to have their picture taken, but that doesn’t imply that they also agreed (or gave consent) for that picture to be shared online or with other people.