New Game to reach 5 million children in partnership between Doğan Holding and UNICEF

ISTANBUL, 17 June 2023 - A game has been launched to help children grasp the importance of universal values such as love, contribution to society and respect, in a new partnership between Doğan Holding and UNICEF.

The ‘Value Wheel’ game will be benefitting at least 5 million children over the next three years, contributing to the development of their soft skills. The Value Wheel is an interactive group game that appeals to two different age groups, 7-10 and 11-14 years old, can be played at school, youth and community centers, amongst a group of friends and family members.

While children learn by playing, teachers, parents, and activity facilitators can use the Value Wheel as an educational tool. Emphasizing values such as honesty, kindness, ethics, and equality, the Value Wheel contributes to the understanding of the need to build an inclusive sustainable and value-oriented society.

The Value Wheel will be available in several languages and Doğan Holding will donate 150,000 sets which will be distributed in regions affected by conflict and other crisis. UNICEF will contextualize the game into different settings with the overarching goal of transforming it into an innovative tool that can be used to strengthen children’s soft skills.

The Common Values Movement, launched by Doğan Holding in 2016 with the aim of discovering how individual values connect with universal ones, thereby eliminating the tendencies of divergence and polarization in society, continues to develop value-oriented and collective development projects. The first of these projects, the "Value Stone" game project, was designed for the age group of 16+, based on the idea that it would be good for everyone to talk about common values and dreams together, and reached 25,000 people in high schools, universities, business world and non-governmental organizations. The ‘Value Wheel’ is yet another important milestone for the movement, and this time Doğan Holding is partnering with UNICEF so to reach children in different parts of the world.

In a protocol signing ceremony hosted by Begüm Doğan Faralyalı, Chairwoman of Doğan Holding, and Regina De Dominicis, UNICEF Representative in Turkey, Faralyalı, in her speech, emphasized that values form the essence of a person and should guide us from childhood. Faralyalı made the following remarks: “Today is a very special day for me. I have been focusing on values for a long time. The more we live in harmony with our values, which are our most important self-regulation mechanism, the happier we are. Individuals disconnected from themselves turn into societies disconnected from each other. Disconnected societies, in turn, become unhappy societies. If we become value-oriented individuals, value-oriented companies, and a value-oriented society, we become a happier society. We initiated the Common Values Movement with this belief. However, ‘value’ is a challenging concept. To be able to discuss this in society, we developed a game called the 'Value Stone' and played it with more than 25,000 people in 7 regions of Turkey. We felt the unifying power of values every time. We realized that the earlier we start discussing values with children, the better. In collaboration with UNICEF, we developed the 'Value Wheel' game, through which children of two different age groups will explore their own values. Over the next 3 years, through the collaboration between UNICEF and Doğan Holding, 5 million children will explore their common values by playing the Value Wheel. In this regard, I am very pleased that we have joined forces with UNICEF as Doğan Holding. I extend my sincere thanks to Ms. Regina De Dominicis and her entire team.

Regina De Dominicis, UNICEF Representative to Türkiye said by helping children understand shared values, the card game would also help to accelerate their socio- emotional learning and life skills development. “We often use play as a tool to help children learn – this is another creative example of acquiring important skills and understanding values in a way that is fun and engaging. We strongly believe that Value Wheel game will enable many children to acquire respect for human rights, diversity, and empathy, promoting social cohesion and peace building. We warmly welcome this collaboration with Doğan Holding, private sector partners are critical to our work, bringing not only resources but also expertise and innovation to help ensure all children can reach their full potential”.

Taking into account the necessity of preparing children in every aspect to lead an individual life in society and raising them in the spirit of the ideals proclaimed in the United Nations Charter, especially peace, values, tolerance, freedom, equality, and solidarity, Doğan Holding and UNICEF expressed the shared satisfaction for reaching an agreement on the common ground of values.

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