The Game Changer

The Game Changer is an international collaboration between partners in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, including the E-sports Federation of Iceland (RÍSÍ), the Swedish gaming organisation SVEROK, the award-winning Finnish youth work Sua Varten Somessa, the Violence Prevention School of Iceland (Ofsi), Digitalt Ansvar in Denmark, Center for Digital Pædagogik, SEUL in Finland and the Nordic Digital Rights and Equality Foundation (NORDREF). The project started in September 2023 and will last through 2026, rooted in research conducted by NORDREF into the perpetrators of online abuse against women and girls in the Nordic region. It revealed that men under the age of 30 are overrepresented among perpetrators of gender-based online abuse. As a result, the Game Changer is creating evidence-based tools, campaigns and initiatives to counter abuse in online spaces with a special focus on reaching young men using the fun methods of gaming and digital youth work. The overall aim of the project is to strengthen young people's digital rights and cyber citizenship.

 

The Game Changer will also envision young people's "online utopia" by gathering data about the changes to digital environments that young people deem necessary for them to reach their highest potential - and help them craft it, using methods of gaming, community-building and social entrepreneurship.

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From 2025-2026, the project will establish Digital Youth Embassies in Denmark, Finland and Iceland where young people will ensure an idea-exchange about best practices and solutions to the mutual challenges all countries face on the internet. Moreover, the Nordic Encyclopaedia of Digital Wellbeing and Safety will be built, pulling together resources and initiatives from all over the Nordic region to create the most comprehensive database to date on how to build an internet culture worthy of its netizens.

 

This project is funded by the Erasmus+ program.