Jamii, the game that promotes Afro cultures around the world

Did you know that Rosa Parks wasn’t the first black woman to refuse to give up her seat on a bus in the United States? Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl, was nine months ahead of him. These are the kinds of stories that Vanessa Vataxi tells through her game Community. crossroads game petty pursuit goose game Community It highlights Afro cultures through a question-and-answer game. The game design earned Vanessa Vataxi, better known by the nickname
Evening, to win the Créatrice d’Avenir Seine-Saint-Denis and the Quartier Cup,
Ile de France initiative competition Dedicated to women’s entrepreneurship.

Through her game, she wanted to develop a concept that would allow players to come together in one game Community, community, on the basis of “what we have in common”. It must be said that Vanessa Vataxi is imbued with different cultures. His parents are from Martinique, Guadeloupe and Guyana. She was born in Belgium, raised in France, and lived in the United States, before returning to settle in Seine-Saint-Denis.

“Let’s play together to get to know each other better”

the Community It is “a playground where you learn what is not yet included in the class,” as its creator explains. The entrepreneur left school at the age of 16 feeling that her teachers did not know how to answer her questions. When her daughter entered college twenty-five years later, she realized that the content of textbooks had not changed. “There is no mention of the history of people of African descent, or in a negative way through colonialism and the triangular trade. Vanessa Vataxi laments this method of teaching history, but above all, the lack of interest that her daughter shows for her own culture.

While thinking of a hilarious way to pass his story on to his teenage son, the idea for the game comes to him. “Books, reading, I get so lonely. I was looking for a way to find out who would re-read us. I couldn’t find it so I did. The mother of the family launches the project and makes it known ‘everywhere you least expect’, in hair salons, cereal bars, etc. The concept is so well received that the entrepreneur is even thanked by mothers of mixed families who do not know how to explain their origins to their children. His answer is simple: “Let’s play together to know each other better.” “

Big ambition for the future

After leaving school, Vanessa Vasci did not stop learning, visiting museums, excursions, watching documentaries. “We value learning in books, not in life. Just because you did not learn something from a book does not mean that it is not interesting.” The businessman plans to “work hand in hand” with civic education in different countries on these issues. Several schools have already made use of it in the classroom to raise awareness of learning outside of textbooks. She was also approached by a high school in Côte d’Ivoire with the aim of developing her programme.

At the moment, she is focusing on game development in France. Company codes, like those of the school, slow it down. So Vanessa Vataxi continues to do it alone. For the first time, she plans to work with others because her project “really has potential. It’s time to be more professional and work less artistic.” From January 2022, she will be accompanied by specialists in F . station, a fledgling Parisian university campus, to revive its digital game.