GAMIFICATION AGAINST CRIMINALITY

Our Idea

Neighbourhood began as a pilot project within Ulriksbergskyrkan (UBK) in Växjö, Sweden, in collaboration with Erikshjälpen and Companion. Early support from Allmänna Arvsfonden enabled a three-year development phase with excellent results. Today, UBK continues to lead the initiative with strong backing from civil society, the municipality, and local businesses.

Through working closely with our youth, we identified three key areas vital for long-term success:

We call these: SCHOOL, WORK and CHARACTER, and for each focus area we have a general goal for our participants:

School: To graduate high school
Work: To be equipped to manage a job
Character: To be able to deal with set-backs, conflicts and peer pressure in a constructive way

Motivating long-term thinking in young people is a challenge, and our focus is on sparking genuine engagement. To do this we use evidence-based strategies rooted in the theories of:

Sense of Coherence (SOC) – Aaron Antonovsky
Gamification
The Marshmallow Test – Walter Mischel
The Pygmalion Effect – Robert Rosenthal

Our Approach

The Neighbourhood-concept is packaged in a mobile app similar to the games that youths are used to interacting with. Inside the app you can find both quests and rewards.
The quests generate points which are then used to buy rewards. One example can be that a participant attends a homework session (quest) to collect points for an upcoming go-kart tournament (reward). Both quests and rewards are executed in person but are communicated, administered, and tracked in the app.

The quests are connected to our three focus areas: school, work and character. The rewards are divided into two categories –events and merits.

quests

SCHOOL

To boost our youths academic performance, we focus on:

Homework Sessions – Weekly sessions where participants can do their homework with the help of our volunteers and simoultaniously earn points in the app.

2. School Attendance: To improve attendance and engament in school we offer on-site support in the form of field work at our participants schools.

Work

Preparing our participants for the working life is crucial for future success. We therefore offer the following initiatives:

1. Internships: Real work experience with points in the appearned through effort and attendance.

2. Workshops: We arrange preparatory workshops with themes such as: How to write a resume, How to succeed at a job interview, and How to maintain a job.

CHARACTER

Building character is essential to changing the trajectory of our participants’ lives. Here, the activities aim to promote a positive and proactive mentality, primarily via two types of quests:

1. Leadership training: Inspiring days where the participants get to develop their ability to lead both themselves and others. The focus is on leadership styles, goal setting, and conflict management.

2. One-on-One & Group Talks – Coaching sessions with value-driven conversations to help participants evaluate their motivations, challenge limiting beliefs, and develop values-based thinking.

Rewards

Events

Our events are often the initial draw for new participants. They offer meaningful recreation, new social experiences, and positive community. Whether it’s ski trips or tournaments, the focus is on fun, growth, and peer support—sometimes even helping youths shield themselves from peer pressure by giving them a “social excuse” to prioritize school.

Something that we have learned from our events is that youths can use them as a cover to avoid pressure from their peers. Participants who, for example, want to succeed with their education will say that they are only participating in the homework sessions in order to earn points for exciting activities. This way they avoid ridicule or bullying for what they are really doing: choosing to stay out of the streets.

Merits

Lastly, we have our meritorious rewards where the participants spend their points on activities which will build a more attractive resume and increase their chances of attaining employment. This can, for example, be driving lessons with one of our volunteers or forklift training.
When our goal is for at-risk youths to want to come to extra homework sessions outside of school, there is a demand for a strong brand amongst the target group. Because of this, we select rewards carefully to ensure they:

Encourage positive social connection
Build our brand among youths
Offer pride and status without crime
Promote confidence and perseverance