Jelly Beans to Feed The World!
(Source: Red Cross)
Thanks to Sharon Nickerson, who posted this game to the Guide Mailing List.
Note: I have a similar but more complex version of this activity on my site, suitable for older girls, called the "Peanut Butter Sandwich Dilemma".
Materials Needed: A bag of jelly beans with enough for at least three per girl.
Goals:
To show that there is enough food for everyone but food is not distributed evenly.
To help girls understand how it feel not have enough food.
Directions:
Each girl picks a slip of paper from a can. Eighty per cent will say "poor" and twenty per cent will say "rich".
Divide the meeting space so that the rich girls have two-thirds of the space and the poor girls are crowded into a corner at the back of the room.
Give the "rich" group a bowl of jelly beans (more than three per person) and the "poor" group a small bowl with just a few jelly beans (not enough for each child).
Before the girls begin to eat they must decide how to divide the jelly beans. To take this exercise a step further, discuss the distribution of space during this exercise. Compare the population of Canada to other countries that are heavily populated.
Note: Before the end of the meeting, provide extra jelly beans for the girls in the "poor" group.
Discussion:
How did the two groups feel about the way the jelly beans were distributed?
Did the rich group share with the poor group? If they did share, how did they decide to share and how much to share?
Why is food important? Why is sharing important? What happens when you never have enough to eat and always feel hungry?
Should rich countries share with poor countries? How can we do this?