Enhance cultural competence by playing diversophy® New Horizons games. 
New Horizons facilitates interaction and dialogue through game play, with the overall goal of increasing awareness, understanding and empathy between communities and individuals. The original New Horizons game is currently in use in at high schools and universities, vocational schools, cultural centres, NGOs, and libraries in Finland, and also has registered users in forty-eight nations.

The Young logo young new horizonNew Horizons game celebrates the present human diversity across Finland by creating empathetic relationships and forming common grounds for young people to create and foster a sustainable society. Young New Horizons addresses a wide range of issues that are of concern and relevant to young people from fourteen to twenty-five years old, including racism, bullying, hate speech, social media use, and awareness of oneself and others.

New Horizons games in general

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.

120+
cards

A freely available, experiential way to facilitate serious learning in a form which adds variety and enjoyment to a classroom, workshop, or conference. Suitable e.g. for teachers, trainers and administrators who seek resources and tools for multicultural education and social change.

You are at a birthday party in Estonia with lots of people. This is clear proof that Estonians believe in the saying, "The more the merrier." True or False?

In Japan, a friend treats you to a bowl of noodles and you want to show that you really find it tasty. What should you do? A. Slurp the noodles into your mouth noisily. B. Just say that it is tasty. C. Make a gesture that means "delicious".

It is customary in Afghanistan to sit on the floor when eating at someone's home. True or False?

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.

Download and print your own cards

After registration you can download everything you need for printing and facilitating your own play session with diversophy® New Horizons.

  • Facilitation Guide
  • Printing Instructions
  • New Horizons Starter Pack 1
  • New Horizons Starter Pack 2

Register here 

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Or, you can order a ready-printed set

Instead of downloading and printing, you can now order a ready-printed set with the same content. The cards are printed on heavy card stock and feature a convenient storage box. Price 40 euros + vat 24 % + delivery costs.

Order here

Cultural Competence Mini-Games


We offer also a second game that complements the New Horizons starter pack quite nicely. The Intercultural Competence Development game pack is available in printed form only. The Competence game includes fifty “beginner,” and fifty “advanced” level cards. The game introduces the player to basic understandings that contribute to cultural literacy and the attitudes and approaches needed to live and work with people of cultures other than one's own. This game will test your players and help you to explore with them the values and behaviours needed to meet this challenge. It will encourage you to organise and use the best of your knowledge and experience with intercultural matters for the success of your students or the organisation or team you work with.

 

Young New Horizons 2019 Edition

The new 2019 edition Young New Horizons focuses on topics of interest and concern to teenagers and young adults (14 to 25). The game facilitates interaction and dialogue through game play, with the overall goal of increasing awareness, understanding and empathy among youth residing in Finland.

The content has been developed by JAMK students in collaboration with high school students across Finland. The game is also the product of ongoing collaboration between local high schools, NGOs and municipal organisations with students and teachers at JAMK University of Applied Sciences, as well as our partner George Simons International.  

Example of card

Young New Horizons addresses a wide range of issues that are of concern and relevant to young people from fourteen to twenty-five years old, including racism, bullying, hate speech, social media use, and awareness of oneself and others.

 

Download Young New Horizons

After registration you can download everything you need for printing and facilitating your own play session with diversophy® New Horizons.

Register here

Privacy policy

 

More information

Crawford Steven

Crawford Steven

Lehtori, Senior Lecturer
Global Competence, Global Competence
Liiketoiminta, School of Business
+358405259912

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. 

Students and staff at JAMK University of Applied Sciences organized the JAMK United for Refugees project in September 2015 as a community awareness campaign. The project is based in a cross-cultural management course where students co-create content and develop their own approaches and solutions. The diversophy® New Horizons game is one of many activities and results to emerge from the project.

 

Read more about the project