‘We have everything that we need’

The Oasis game starts with the premise that a community has an abundance of resources and capabilities and just needs to unleash a sense of play and the power to create. The idea has been uniting and transforming places across the world, explains Simon Hodges.

Fifteen years ago a group of architects in Santos, Brazil was asked to redesign an aquarium. In order to do so they used the participation of the community to envision, design and carry out the work. At the heart of this method was a playful sense of possibility. By 2007, they were running month-long summer schools and transforming communities with a simple invitation that anyone was invited to join them and play.

The principles of playfulness and openness that Elos – as it became known, meaning ‘link’ in Portuguese – set down in its early projects have now been implemented in dozens of projects worldwide. Its European arm, Elos Nederland, has now completed around 22 projects in the Netherlands, UK, Montenegro and the Dutch Antilles. What sets their approach apart is the simultaneous resolution of physical and psychological factors in a community. Communities are engaged to build something beautiful for themselves in a way that is invigorating and deeply healing.

Unleashing the spirit of play in communities
The now legendary 2007 ‘Oasis game’ in Santos Brazil asked locals to dream of a future they wanted and helped them realise it in a physical space. In this case it was an old warehouse filled with trash, old condoms and used heroin needles. The warehouse was literally transformed into an oasis with jungle scenery, ponds, castles all pulled from the locals’ – mostly children’s – imaginations and completed with volunteer support. Over the course of five weeks, volunteer numbers swelled and local businesses offered support. Such was the groundswell that television stations began to offer courage. The changes in the community last to this day: a symbol of degradation was replaced by one of community-in-action, and a collective sense of power generated from it.

The method became known as the Oasis game, which Elos runs worldwide. In March, at Elos’s Impact’in Community day in Amsterdam, the network shared its tools and how far it had come. It was also a chance to bring together like-minded people to share techniques and inspire them to apply the Oasis principles in their own work. And so over 100 social entrepreneurs, community designers, sustainability professionals and facilitators gathered to undertake workshops in storytelling, dreaming, and understand more deeply what makes the Oasis game so special.

Niels Koldewijn, founder of Elos Nederland, was so inspired by those early games in Brazil that he brought them back to Europe in a case of ‘reverse development’ where practices applied in poorer countries are applied to similar problems in richer ones.

‘We have a spirit of play that people find attractive,’ he says ‘The way we use it to influence and change the world is quite different from other approaches out there.’

Starting from an attitude of abundance
The spirit of play is evident from the way the workshops are run. The logic is simple – that people who enjoy being together can think and act together more quickly and effectively. The creation of connection is what guides the entire process and, Koldewijn believes, deepens the impact of the result.

‘We’re not just building a school yard or playground. This is something the community has been actively and creatively involved in from the start. Our games are really just a catalyst for action, we hope that will radiate into the wider community.’

Evidence of this spread has been found, for example, in the Dutch Antilles where one local participant became a social entrepreneur actively solving problems in his community. In Newham, in east London, a group of participants playing the Oasis game has since set up a sewing group which maintains social bonds built up during the game.

The focal part of the Elos vision is having an attitude of abundance. ‘The attitude of scarcity is probably the starting point for multiple crises’, says Koldewijn. ‘Abundance is the assumption that we already have what we need, we just need to meet together and create what we want.’

What Elos manages to do so successfully – perhaps reflecting its architectural background – is to take this talent for creation and apply it to concrete outcomes. This makes Elos and its Oasis game a different kind of social impact organisation. Where others seek to alter social conditions, or specialise in making practical changes, here it is all seen as inter-related. Practical work combines with deepening respect for the people you work with, and inspiration rises in situation previously seen as hopeless.

The third essential part of Elos philosophy is imagination. When the children in Santos were asked what they wanted, they were not held back, they said precisely what they wanted. What is remarkable is the supporting volunteers engendered a sense of possibility – these things could be done, a way could be found. It might not work immediately, but it was easy to adapt and improve.

Liliane Smith is a public space designer for Stadsdeel Nieuw-West in Amsterdam who attended the Impact’in Community day and is looking to add a more social dimension to her work. ‘I came because I really like the approach of the Oasis game and would like to be involved in a training and project one day. But mostly I came because I wanted to be inspired by other like-minded people and organisations. I found out that if you are prepared to dream, these dreams can come true.’

Elos is now expanding its network globally and is about to release a book and DVD to share its techniques with others. At the core of this vision is an attitude that communities have everything they need in terms of resources and capability. All that is needed is a sense of power to create. Elos are able to engender this in the communities they work with and it begins and ends with play.

• To participate in an Oasis game, and see what other events they are running visit ElosNederland.nl