Decide is being played all over the world in science and society contexts like science museums and centres. Sometimes, though, Decide’s flexibility let it fly over some boundaries few of us will ever experience. For example, prisons.

In 2007 the Austrian organization Science Centre Netzwerk, together with Aids Help Wien, tried to play Decide within the bare walled cells of a prison. Science Centre Netzwerk decided to use the Hiv kit which was a topic prisoners were meant to be sensitive to, yet not educated or acquainted about science.

Science Centre Netzwerk have had a collaboration with Aids Help Wien for a long time now, as they prefer to run Decide’s sessions on Hiv together with experts who can explain the local nuances, peculiarity and figures about the Austrian ongoing Hiv situation. The cards in the HIV kit were in fact developed to be used anywhere, without a specific local focus (now however all the Decide kits can be customized and edited with local and relevant information).

Their prison experience, then, was just the final step of a long chain of contacts, starting with a Decide game for groups of elderly women, up to homeless shelters and youth prisons. This chain was due to the brilliant work they did with Decide in every occasion that gained them many recommendations to run the card game all through this type of new contexts.

But let’s go back to prison: Science Centre Netzwerk had only contacts with the prison’s staff and then they were introduced to a group of 7 prisoners who were voluntarily waiting for them to arrive. As the game unravelled, prisoners became very talkative (and a bit noisy) as if they had been waiting for a chance to express themselves for ages. The details about Hiv widespread in the room, as the players got more and more dragged into it. Sometimes, especially in particular places whose inhabitants seldom come in contact with the outside, people get aware of their situation all of a sudden. This occurred when one player, after having read and discussed the topic, claimed he was pretty sure that his cell mate (not playing there) might be infected with Hiv. He became very concerned about that and started asking restlessly for more information about the infection’s spread. Fear was soaring high when the expert from AIDS Help Wien chimed in giving him and his fellow inmates all the information they needed, easing the highly-charged atmosphere.

Despite of this situation, in the end everybody was very satisfied because Decide had given them the chance to be aware about a topic relvant to them and had provided them with some virtual tool like knowledge to deal with their situation. The Decide prison experience was successful though Barbara Streicher, who ran the session and is leading Science Centre Netzwerk, sometimes adapted some game stages to the particular situation. And that’s the hint she’s keen about: “The most important feature for all the facilitators playing Decide is to be flexible and have a feeling about the context they are in. Feel free to change or skip some phases of the game if you think it can help avoid inconveniences and favour the game success”.

Gianfilippo Parenti

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