Labels
In the cartoon a lot of the boys use labels for their schoolmates. Let's do an activity to see how the use of labels affects us.
Step 1. Everyone takes a sticky label or a piece of paper if sticky labels are not available.
Step 2. Write something on your paper that you would not like to be called. It can be a label referring to age, gender, tribe, language, culture or anything else that identifies you as different from others, e.g. a "fala," a "Jaluo Jinga", "Mkamba fala", "Kikuyu Mwizi" or "Mjinga wewe".
Step 3. One person collects all the labels and, with the group sitting in a circle, sticks each label (or hand them out) at random to everyone in the group so that the one who wrote that particular label does not get it.
Step 4. Each person in turn then looks at his/her label and imagines that it was the one he/she wrote. He/she should then say how he/she feels and what he/she does not like about being called that label. When everyone has had a chance to speak, pass a paper bin around the circle encouraging every person to destroy the label and place it in the bin, saying, "I will never use this label on anyone again."
Once the activity is complete, share your responses with one another
to the following questions:
- How did it feel to do this activity?
- What made you feel this way?
- Why did we do this activity?
- What have you learnt about yourself and others from this activity?
