“Civinity” helps a Lithuanian student project to reach the wider market by contributing to the emotional intelligence of young people

“Civinity” helps a Lithuanian student project to reach the wider market by contributing to the emotional intelligence of young people

An educational board game created by students of the Petras Vileišis Gymnasium in Pasvalys, which Civinity is helping to develop, is successfully gaining the attention of young people and other entrepreneurs. The project aims to promote a reduction in mobile phone use among teenagers and a return to quality live communication. It is hoped that the game will be available to everyone in Lithuania this year.

Encourages quality communication

The unique project was presented by gymnasts at the social hackathon “Smartuoliai”, which took place last autumn at the ISM University of Management and Economics to promote the development of emotional intelligence in children and young people in Lithuania. The card game, in which participants take on different roles, develops teenagers’ critical and analytical thinking, imagination and communication skills. While some of the situations presented in the game are unrealistic, most of them reflect real life, sometimes even putting players in positions that go beyond their normal comfort zone.

“The main aim of this project is to bring young people of the same age together to spend time without using mobile phones. And in our own circles, we see that teenagers these days are no longer able to communicate with each other, and when they go to a relatives’ party, they sit at the dinner table with their phones out. We want young people to break away from this, to be able to communicate more freely and to talk not only about comfortable but also uncomfortable topics”, – says Skaiva Gudauskytė, representing the team of 10-11 grade students who created the game.

Introducing the game to others and improving the prototype

After the social hackathon, S. Gudauskytė and her team members visited “Civinity” office in Vilnius, where, during a joint strategy session, they decided to overhaul the idea of the game in order to make the final product even more interesting and engaging for young people.

“We wanted to create a product that we could launch on the market and generate income from, even now, as school pupils. We are now in the prototype testing phase, where “Civinity” is particularly helpful. Our aim is to launch the game in September this year, with the hope that it will eventually hit the shelves,” says S. Gudauskytė, who first presented the game to her city peers.

“Testing is going well. The first testing session took place in our own Petras Vileišis gymnasium in Pasvalys, with five teams participating. The reactions of the young people were positive and we heard a lot of laughter. When asked them to rate whether they would buy such a game on a ten-point scale, nine was the predominant response. We think that as a prototype, this is a very good result”, says the student.

To find out starting at what age the game could be played, we also conducted a test in Pasvalys Lėvens Primary School with pupils in grades 7-8. According to the team, everyone was also keen to participate, although the complexity of some of the concepts made it a little more difficult for the 13-year-olds. However, S. Gudauskytė said that this could be a good thing – it would encourage the younger ones to take an interest in the game and develop their skills.

As part of the strategic objectives, in recent months the team has been visiting other Lithuanian schools and gathering feedback from teenagers and teachers who have tried the game.

“Finally, we presented the game to the students of Vilnius Gabija Gymnasium, where most of them said they had never played anything like it. We also have one more session coming up in the near future – we have received interest from a teacher at a gymnasium in Panevėžys, who may be a potential future client of ours”, says S. Gudauskytė.

Aiming to enter an international competition

Recently, the team won another recognition, which will give them the opportunity to present their project to a wider audience in the capital next month, and perhaps even to travel abroad.

On the 6th of April S. Gudauskytė’s team took part in the Panevėžys Regional Exhibition organised by “Lietuvos Junior Achievement”, which brings together students and leaders of entrepreneurship and financial literacy education programmes under one roof. Business experts involved in the organisation provide advice, mentoring, internships for young people and other contributions to the development of educational programmes. It was the Pasvalys team’s game here that earned them a ticket to the National Exhibition of Apprenticeship Training Companies, which will take place on 12 May this year in  Vilnius, where schools from all over Lithuania will compete. As S.  Gudauskytė, where students will present their projects with the aim of entering the European exhibition in Istanbul.

Business support for emotional intelligence measures for children and young people is one of the most important elements that companies and NGOs today include in their corporate social responsibility plans.

The social hackathon “Smartuoliai” was initiated and organised by real estate development company “Eika” together with “Civinity” partners “ACME Grupe”, JUNG and Kazickas Family Foundation.

About Civinity Group:

“Civinity is one of the largest building maintenance and engineering solutions groups in the Baltics. The company brings together more than 40 companies that maintain 13.5 million square metres of residential, commercial buildings and cleaning areas and have installed several thousand engineering systems in different European cities. The “Civinity” team has 2,000 employees in Lithuania, Latvia and the UK. In mid-October 2021, Civinity successfully placed a EUR 8 million bond issue and is listed on Nasdaq Vilnius.