B-F-L-A LAUNCHES EDUCATIONAL BOARD GAME

December 01, 2008

The Belize Family Life Association held a launching ceremony at the Princess Hotel this morning for a board game called “Thorns”. The game is an interactive educational game about sexual and reproductive health. Joan Burk is the Executive Director of the Belize Family Life Association.

Joan Burk; Executive Director, Belize Family Life Association

“It speaks to issues of HIV and AIDS and other sexual reproductive health as well as it provides an opportunity for interactive discussions within the school setting as well as within the home. Today we are fortunate that with the help from UNESCO as well as the Caribbean Family Planning Affiliation, we were able to secure funds that we used to develop the games to distribute to schools free of cost. It is also the intent of the organization to do some income generation from the project as well and so we are encouraging the public to get a copy of the first ever board game to be produced in Belize.”

The game was the winning game from BFLA’s National Board Game Competition last year submitted by 18 year old Tristaca Anderson from Belmopan Comprehensive School. 

Joan Burk; Executive Director, Belize Family Life Association

“November 2007, as part of the World AIDS Day activity the Belize Family Life Association sponsored a board game competition. It was open to persons 18 years and older. We had 47 entries, we started short listing and eventually we ended up with a game called ‘Torns’. That was the winning entry. We then took the concept and along with our youth staff and other partners as well as quite a bit of young people we engaged in an activity to develop ‘Torns’.  Eventually we came out with ‘Thorns’, it was produced and reproduced in Belize and for that we are very proud. As a matter of fact when we contacted Print Belize to do the production and reproduction for us they said that they could not do it because the board game itself requires a lot of innovative techniques. We were able to get them to do it.”

Print Belize produced 600 copies of the game; 300 will be given to schools and other youth institutions countrywide and the rest will be sold for 75 dollars a copy.

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