How do you teach young people the basics of dealing critically with the media and disinformation? DW Akademie’s Guatemalan partner organization Comunicares took the challenge and developed a role-playing game based on the everyday lives of young indigenous people. The app is called "Tinamit", a word meaning "village" in many Mayan languages, and includes the abbreviation "AMI", the Spanish term for Media and Information Literacy (MIL).
The game is set in a village where young players dive into the world of five young Guatemalan protagonists. Players have to make decisions about daily situations, and these decisions determine how the game proceeds. One question, for example, is how to deal with unserious job or training offers in the capital or abroad that appear on WhatsApp.
The players interact and based on their talks with the other protagonists, decide their next move.
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MIL goes viral: The Guatemalan game app Tinamit
What is Tinamit?
Tinamit means “village” in several Mayan languages. The app is a role-playing game where players have to make decisions and find solutions to everyday situations.
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MIL goes viral: The Guatemalan game app Tinamit
Playing, analyzing and finding alternatives
Dealing critically with disinformation is core to the game. Targeted at young people, it is based on the everyday life of indigenous youth living in Guatemalan villages.
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MIL goes viral: The Guatemalan game app Tinamit
Learning Media and Information Literacy via app
The game’s five protagonists are young Guatemalans who represent the five crucial skills which people need to learn Media and Information Literacy.
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MIL goes viral: The Guatemalan game app Tinamit
Lupita: Access
Lupita is a protagonist who works in a bookstore and looks after information available on or offline. She stands for accessing information in order to solve problems
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MIL goes viral: The Guatemalan game app Tinamit
Ana: Analyse
Ana is an alert, methodical and cautious student. She stands for dealing critically with unreliable online offers.
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MIL goes viral: The Guatemalan game app Tinamit
Cristian: Creation
Cristian is very active on social media. He stands for creating online content in a responsible way.
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MIL goes viral: The Guatemalan game app Tinamit
Sofia: Reflection
Sofia is a teacher who is reflective and teaches school students how to deal critically with disinformation. She stands for critically assessing news and potential online scams.
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MIL goes viral: The Guatemalan game app Tinamit
Mark: Action
Marc is a young tuk-tuk driver who is always helping people in his community. He stands for taking action against local rumors that put his community under pressure.
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MIL goes viral: The Guatemalan game app Tinamit
Learning to solve media challenges
Tinamit promotes media skills such as learning to recognize and avoid disinformation. Junior Gutiérrez of Zona K'iche' stated after playing: "It's important to know how to distinguish correct information from false information. Because there are people who take advantage of the need of others to deceive and swindle them. You have to doubt first and look for concrete and reliable information".
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MIL goes viral: The Guatemalan game app Tinamit
It's time to play!
Tinamit is teaching lessons to participants from different linguistic regions of Guatemala. 15-years-old Reyna Cun from the Kachiquel zone says: "I have learned to wait before trusting a source and not to give out information or personal details to someone I don't know". Shall we play?
The MIL game Tinamit was developed as part of the Global Crisis Initiative project "MIL goes viral". The game concept emerged from a Comunicares study that reflects how young people with limited Internet access deal with information and also use Mayan languages on social media.
Several young people from four Mayan communities helped develop the app, with the game’s four protagonists and the village itself based on their own experiences. Truly reflecting Guatemalan culture and how information is shared in villages, the game challenges young players to make critical decisions themselves. The app is now a standard component of Comunicares’ MIL training programs.
You can play the game HERE (in Spanisch).
