Today, as the planet Earth has faced the consequences of Global Warming, people living in both urbans and rural have experienced the effects of Climate change like flooding and drought. Same as in Yangon, the major city of Myanmar, also no stranger to the impacts of unconditional extreme weather events and the annexation of climate change.
On the Other Hand, with the aid of new technologies, Cities are trying to adapt and sustain from natural disasters as well as making them livable and inclusive. Among the innovative techniques to solve and simulate the more disaster relief community, Games are one of the ideal considerations.
Because of the purpose, on 16th February 2022, “We the City” Talk series presented a webinar called “Games for Urban Sustainability and Climate Resilience, Case study – Yangon Raincraft Program”. We the City: Making Yangon talk series presented by Doh Eain is an interesting talk series which is about knowledge sharing sessions to become better, more livable and sustainable cities.
Due to that interesting topic about Games use in creation of a sustainable and resilient future, this was highly interesting among youths and most of the webinar attendees were from various backgrounds and different specializations.
In the webinar, there were four speakers who shared the whole concept of games for urban sustainability and climate resilience, especially the Yangon Raincraft program which promoted local communities to get actively involved in making their neighborhoods more climate resilient focusing on small-scale, practical measures, such as rainwater harvesting, drainage improvements, awareness and education programs, water quality monitoring, mobile apps and household water filters. Speaker 1 is Ms. Shwe Yati Su, Project consultant from The Water Agency. Ms. Swan Yee Tun Lwin, Junior project manager from Doh Eain presented as speaker 2 and the two former Yangon Raincraft Round II Participants, Ms. Hnin Wut Yee San and Mr. Nay Myo Htet well presented their participating experiences of the program, how they ideated, discussed, negotiated and built climate resilience designs in Minecraft.
Speaker 1: Sustainability and Community based Climate Resilience
Ms. Shwe Yati Su shared about sustainability, how climate change happened, clearly defined climate resilience by mentioning mitigation and adaptation and the importance of community based sustainability and climate resilience actively by also asking attendees’ point of view. With her experience in this field, she carefully explained and encourage to listen to the voice of the people in the target area in order to understand their needs and wants and find the best solution. She also highlighted the fact that webinar attendees should start caring for the environment individually to create a sustainable environment which can also benefit society and the economy.
Speaker 2: Games for Urban
According to the Topic, Game and Cities, Ms. Swan Yee Tun Lwin started by explaining the fundamentals of games, the definition of “Play”, history of games and the main element of the game which made the attendees understand the essence of the game industry. The presentation somehow distinguished for the webinar attendees the difference between fun games and serious games and let the audience understand that games can be utilized as a learning tool. She also covered those facts by explaining the games are mostly used to make attendees understand something easily. Since we are going on a climate resilient pathway, she recommended the best sustainability and resilience games and also introduced the Raincraft Program.
Speakers 3 and 4: Yangon Raincraft Program Experience
In the last knowledge sharing session, two participants from Yangon Raincraft Program excitedly shared their experience and program overview. Firstly, Ms Hnin Wut Yee San explained how the Raincraft Program started not only for the first time players in the Minecraft game but also for the participants who were willing to understand the concepts of climate change, urban placemaking, water cycle, flooding and water scarcity.
She also explained some activities used in the program which were supported to understand more about the lectures and to support the final group project, such as water hazard mapping, the journey of water, scavenger hunt, context mapping and greening your house. Finally, she shared her own experience of teamwork generating the main ideas to result in the designs of climate adaptation interventions for the final project. Secondly, Mr Nay Myo Htet explained Minecraft site selection first and then how he and his team did a case study on foreign and local projects like Amsterdam Rainproof and other public climate adaptation design projects. Then, he shared about doing site analysis based on meeting with NPCs to hear the community’s voice. In the final, he presented how all the team built climate adaptation interventions in Minecraft focusing on three main topics, Climate Resilience Adaptation, Sustainable Water Security and Placemaking.
Q & A session
After experience sharing, attendees got full interest in the Yangon Raincraft Program and they were excited to join the next program. Some of the attendees were amazed by the Minecraft ward 5 model and creative activities based on lectures.
In conclusion, from this interesting webinar, many youths across the country had known that Games can be used as a virtual tool in creation of climate-resilient neighborhoods and placemaking for everyone. Moreover, they could taste and learn about community based sustainability and climate resilience and could get a chance to glance at Yangon Raincraft programs.
For further details about the Yangon Raincraft Program, Yangon Raincraft Program Round 1 and Round 2.
Written By:
- Nay Myo Htet (Yangon Raincraft Participant and an Architecture student from West Yangon Technological University)
- Hnin Wut Yee San(Yangon Raincraft Participant and a Computer Science student from GUSTO University)
