ጉርሻ

Gursha

Taking a healthy playful bite

gursha — the act of placing a folded bite of food into another person's mouth with your own hand. In Ethiopia it is not a way of feeding someone. It is a way of saying you belong at this table and an expression of love and care.

Ethiopia’s 2022 dietary guidelines are a policy document, not something that teenagers actually read. Therefore 47 teenagers helped turn them into games. Students said they were eating differently at home after 13 weeks of play.

Sept 2025 – Jul 2026 · complete

One platter. Many hands.

Adolescent co-creation participants

Playable games produced

Weeks of intervention

Intervention schools

62%

Average attendance retained

Schools received the games

The approach

Let the players design the lesson

Lectures frustrate teenagers quickly. Thus we let them design the games with nutritionists and game designers sitting next to them, and then measured what changed over thirteen weeks.

Phase 01

Co-create

Two four-day workshops with 47 adolescents informed the design and produced the first prototypes.

The workshops →

Phase 02

Test

Playtests with the co-creators, then with a separate student group, to assess whether the rules were learnable.

Phase 03

Intervene

Thirteen weeks of weekly gameplay in six schools, with six control schools for comparison.

The results →

Phase 04

Hand over

Games and rulebooks were distributed to all twelve schools for continued use.

The handover →

The portfolio

Five games, three kinds of knowing

Three game families, three ways of learning. Beyaynetu sorts and balances food across three levels. Gursha is about portions. Digis maps the wider food environment.

Game 01 · Levels 1–3

Beyaynetu

To learn about food groups & diversified diet.

Game 02

Gursha

To learn about amount.

Game 03

Digis

To learn about where to get each food.

Explore all the games →

The intervention

Thirteen weeks, six schools, one lunch break

Weekly lunchtime play in six schools, with six control schools alongside. Printed games, trained local facilitators, existing lunch breaks — deliberately low-cost and built to copy. We tracked attendance and behaviour the whole way through.

Students playing Beyaynetu Level 1 during a school session — Students playing Beyaynetu Level 1 during a school intervention session

The games taught us about food, and I actually changed my own eating habits because of it.Student, School 4 · week 12

The games helped me understand how to organize my diet daily to live healthy.Student, School 6

I want to focus on my meals more going forward.Student, School 1

Explore intervention →

Project arc

September 2025 to July 2026

17–26 Sep 2025Co-creation workshopsTwo rounds with 47 adolescents at School 7, the co-creation site.

Oct–Nov 2025PlaytestingPrototypes tested with the co-creators, then with a separate student group. Two games cleared; one was simplified.

22 Jan 2026Ethical clearanceApproval received for the school-based intervention study.

26 Jan / 5 Feb 2026Game Master trainingTwo full-day batches, with role-play vetting by facilitators from Chewata Awaqi.

Feb 2026School onboardingThe programme was introduced at six schools as a tournament with prizes and certificates.

Feb–Jun 2026The interventionThirteen weeks of weekly lunchtime gameplay across six schools.

6 Jul 2026Handover eventGames distributed to all twelve schools, with ministry, institute and school representatives present.

NowDisseminationA multi-platform campaign sharing the methodology; the research paper is in preparation.

Scroll sideways to follow the timeline →

Partners

This project was made possible thanks to

With the support of

For donors & institutional funders

An evaluated model, ready to scale

A finished, documented intervention. Ready for assessment: the co-design method, the games, thirteen weeks of data against control schools, and a handover model built to outlast the study.

Evidence

Measured outcomes

62% average attendance retained over 13 weeks, observed peer-to-peer teaching, and students' self-reported changes to meals at home — documented alongside six control schools.

Efficiency

Low-cost delivery

Printed card games, locally trained Game Masters and lunch-break sessions. No screens, no infrastructure and no per-student technology cost.

Scale

A national pathway

The FBDG framework is national policy. The games, rulebooks and training model are designed for replication in other regions with partner support.