Hekate-the return of the Goddess (Athens) & The Centaur's Secrets (Municipality of Zagora-Mouresi).
By entering a partnership with the Athens Development and Destination Management Agency, and the Municipality of Zagora-Mouresi, we launched two Live Action Role Playing Games related to the socio-economic, natural, and cultural heritage of the designated areas, offering locals opportunities to maintain their psychological resilience levels, enhancing the areas economic imprint, and acting as leverage for locals to enter new professions, whilst fighting neglection of the regions.
Local
Greece
Municipality of Athens
Municipality of Zagora-Mouresi
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
2023-01-01
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Creators of Cosmos SMPC Type of organisation: For-profit company First name of representative: Mario Last name of representative: Chatzidamianos Gender: Male Nationality: Greece Function: Director of Compliance, Communications and Business Development Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Kleisthenous Town: Athens Postal code: 10552 Country: Greece Direct Tel:+30 695 549 0157 E-mail:marioschatzidamianos@yahoo.com Website:https://www.creatorsofcosmos.com
In 2018, our company was selected as a beneficiary of the program “This Is Athens Polis²” related to the rejuvenation of the city’s centre. As a result, we developed a Live Action Role Playing scenario under the axes “Revival of the Theatre Square”. The game (“Hecate the goddess Return”) is associated with the city’s architectural structure and ancient cultural heritage. It is based on oral and written evidence, architectural data, the theory of multiple intelligence, and the scope of implementing it under a co-development/implementation model, with the assistance of existing store owners and communities of populations on the move hosted in the areas (refugees from Europe, ASEAN, and African nations). During the program, we supported the Municipality’s personnel in developing contracting (legal), execution (organizational) and evaluation protocols, offering them a metrics monitoring system to showcase the intervention’s results. This was made possible as our management is based on both the economic theories of Chris Argyris and William Ouchi and principles such as collective decision-making, long-term employment, taking care of personal circumstances, clarity on directions and operational protocols and individual responsibility, organizational learning (based on a double feed loop model) supported by strategies that emphasize common goals and mutual influence, encourage open communication and control of affairs and beliefs, combine advocacy with the research of valid information, free and informed choice of the personnel on managing issues, internal commitment based on shared control. The methodology was again applied at our LARP “The Centaurs Secrets” at the Municipality of Zagora-Mouresi, a rural area in central Hellas, with impeccable results for slow tourism, cultural and natural heritage perseverance, skill acquisition and capacity building, tackling socio-economic exclusion etc.
slow tourism
cultural/natural heritage perseverance
project co-development
SDG-ESG & the Right to Development
tackling socio-economic exclusion
Our projects are exemplary, based on UCLA’s Sustainability Committee directive of "integrating environmental health, social equity and economic vitality to create thriving, healthy, diverse and resilient communities for all generations, by bridging social science with civic engineering and environmental science with technology of the future". Our scenarios cover the SDGs: Gender Equality (No5), Decent Work and Economic Growth (No8), Reduced Inequalities (No10), Sustainable Cities and Communities (No11) and Partnerships for the Goals (No17).
In Athens (civic area)
90% of the production team came from within the municipality’s limit. Services and materials provision was limited to under 2klm. We used up to 80% of reusable materials, and 25% of them were delivered through upcycling, with 0% of harmful chemicals and materials. We used a co-develop/implement methodology. Thus, we collaborated with existing shop owners, residents, neighbouring refugee communities, and academics, helping them integrate with the project and developing new synergies. The game was based on the cultural background and architectonic elements of more than 2000 years old to explain the structure of the city’s development about the religious beliefs of the ancient Athenians.
In Zagora-Mouresi (rural area)
We reserve 100% of the environment heritage (15,000 m²) by conducting environmental engineering reports for the maintenance of local fauna and flora, and the usage of non-harmful chemicals and materials, production used reusable materials at 85%, limiting the distance of transferable services provision to less than 70klm, hired 90% of the production team within the municipality’s limit and enhanced their economic imprint, whilst engaged with locals for developing the context and content of the scenario to explain cultural beliefs and background and the perseverance of the population’s cultural identity.
Our projects are exemplary concerning aesthetics and quality of experience for people (through design, positive emotions, and cultural benefits), as our model of co-development/implementation has the following effects.
Design: under the co-development/implementation methodology, we hold open meetings with employees, associates, partners, residents, neighbouring professionals, and marginalized populations. Every decision is made collectively to reflect every single concern expressed during the meetings. The most successful effect of this design approach is that we adapt to better serve the locals’ needs, taking into account their knowledge and insights. Thus, we hit a higher acceptance and support indicator for the investment because we implement these populations’ vision of how they want to see the intervention areas develop concerning their right to development.
Emotions: based on the data gathered, the satisfaction of the participant populations during production and implementation allowed us to verify that when we create a safe environment for people to express their beliefs and opinions freely and adjust to their needs, then it makes them more productive and participatory in the process. Related results can be identified in the PDF document attached.
Cultural benefits: concerning the benefited populations, we feel satisfied having combined historical evidence and oral (living) wisdom to represent their cultural background and heritage, as both the projects reflect on elements of the ancient Hellenic Civilization. When referring to myths or religious beliefs, it is vital to use this material to narrow the gap between visitors’ perceptions and locals’ reality. A fun fact is that in all the games, participants shared the truth that no must-see attraction or related service covered areas of the country’s cultural history ever explained before. We also created a repository of living wisdom to reserve for future generations.
Our projects are exemplary concerning Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Mutuality, having signed an agreement with Diversity Atlas, the first cultural DNA mapping survey to cover every aspect of the DEIM spectrum. This allowed us to identify the beliefs, stasis, and thesis of every single stakeholder of the project and adjust our policies and methodologies to meet their needs.
Having described that our managerial model lies on the double feed learning loop and the Z economic theory, we operate indicatively and not solely: screening of stakeholders to reflect their cultural beliefs and address concerns, a safe environment for marginalized populations (e.g., LGBTQIA+, ex-inmates of prison etc.), a friendly environment for people with disabilities (based on survey results), as well as an environment in which professionals flourish (yearlong counselling sessions with expert coaches for their career development of even for a career change). Regarding accessibility, both games are accessible under the theory of multiple intelligence. Helping people with disabilities participate allows them to discover capacities and skills they didn’t know they had or haven’t developed (e.g., in one of our riddles, the team needs to help the movement-disabled person access the riddle area). Thus, that individual managed on behalf of the team to solve the riddle due to their musical intelligence. All these results are discussed with the teams during the last day of the game, serving skill acquisition and capacity building. The same applies when our games are used as incentives by companies. Lastly, we have a variety in pricing, which allows access to our games even for free when the screened participant faces critical socio-economic difficulties. Likewise, by acting as economic leverage for these areas, we allowed unemployed and low-income individuals to raise their financial statutes, thus becoming more active in the socio-economic fabric.
When referring to the citizens, the following realizations were met when producing yearly surveys:
Citizens benefits:
• Development of capacities and skills
• Alternative employment opportunities
• Raise income
• Support in setting up and operating a social enterprise (legally handed and economically supported by our company)
• Reuse and upcycling of raw materials, cycling economy appliance
• Perseverance of cultural backgrounds' and heritages
• Perseverance of natural habitats
• Serving the right to development (UN resolution)
• Serving various SDGs as previously described
• Network of almost a quarter million volunteers established among civilians that took part in one of our projects (the two referred to in this application included) or have collaborated with.
Civil Society actors:
• Participation of more than 20 organizations in our network, with project-based engagement, especially in the Athens game, as a way for populations on the move to get acquainted with Hellas’s cultural background and existing cultural imprint.
• Cycling economy is achieved to benefit local associations of producers, retailers, and individuals facing socioeconomic marginalization.
• Partnership with multiple civil society stakeholders to design both projects to protect the areas from overexploitation of natural resources, development of oral wisdom repository, and procedures for inclusion of marginalized populations during the production and implementation period.
• Support in setting up and operating a social enterprise (by default, in our managerial model, these are legally handed and economically supported by our company) whilst the locals handle the decision-making process. Transfer of ownership within a six-month to a year to the locals.
Level of engagement of different stakeholders:
Local:
Municipality of Athens: high-value involvement – offered free residences for the company (covering electricity bills, not asking for municipal taxation). They additionally provided PR services of more than €50.000,00 globally and co-developed legal and operational procedures for the pilot, hosting, program.
Municipality of Zagora-Mouresi: high-value involvement – offered support in networking with local associations of professionals and the civic-society organizations in the area.
Surrounding stores: high-value involvement – minimized cost and helped develop the products.
Neighbouring communities of refugees: high-value involvement – co-design projects, helped spread the news to related communities, new employees enter the socio-economic fabric.
Marginalized populations: (disabled ones, LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent ones, ex-prison inmates etc.): high-value involvement – co-design projects, making them accessible for all.
Academics: high-value involvement – evaluating our methodologies and approach and producing metrics and data about projects’ results (three universities from Athens and one from the Thessalian region near the Municipality of Zagora-Mouresi).
Civic Society representatives: high-value involvement – co-design/implementation, protection of natural and cultural heritage.
Individual professionals and experts: high-value – supporting the company’s hybrid management model to be explained and applied for the first time in Hellas.
Participants/clients: high-value – reforming context and content to make it inclusive and equitable.
Regional: no engagement
National: no engagement
European: no engagement
Corporal professionals: throughout the project (directors, employees, marketing, sales, communications, etc.).
Researchers: design phase, they gathered the available material regarding the PESTLE analysis needed.
Historians and Archivists: throughout the project, they helped gather the data available concerning the content of the scenarios. They also helped monitor oral wisdom and created repositories.
Environmental Engineers: throughout the project, they designed the protection measures and the interventions needed for the physical space.
Academics: throughout the project, for knowledge production, transfer, and movability (e.g., creating metrics based on multiple intelligence theory).
Sociologists and Culture Experts: design phase, they helped develop inclusive content.
Architects: throughout the project, for designing and resetting the areas in every game round.
Game designers for gamification of knowledge: throughout the project, they transformed the different elements into game mechanics.
Social and Solidarity Economy Experts: throughout the project, they infused the design and helped locals set up the social enterprise to undertake the project’s continuity.
Intellectual Property Rights Experts: throughout the project, for IP legal support.
Theatre professionals: throughout the project, since our games can be described as improvisational theatre (dramatologists, SFX designers, costume and jewellery, make-up and hair, costumes and consumables, electricians, videographers, editors etc.).
CCI professionals: throughout the project, since our games will upgrade to phygital ones (e.g., videographers, graphic designers, crafts and artisans, R&D, Apps, culinary, graphic design etc.).
Their engagement was based on the double loop learning model and the Z theory, serving all three access of the knowledge economy (production, transfer, and movability). Their value was impeccable, making our company a success story by birth.
As it is difficult to discuss all our results, we preferred to showcase them in an attached report entitled “Results, outcomes and impacts NEB2023”. Three buildings underwent minor reconstructing, either paid for by our company (Zagora Mouresi) or the Municipality of Athens (Athens-based project). Additionally, we would like to add that based on our employment data, most of our project-based participants (76%) who underwent counselling sessions either continue to collaborate with our company or have been directed and accepted in a new working environment (professional pivoting) in recent years (2019-2022). Based on the income indicators presented in the attached file, we reported a rise of income for locals at 100%, as they never produced profit from upcycling the leftovers of their products before and, at the same time, offered their services in a new professional environment they weren’t aware of. Likewise, based on our management model, we directly employed 25 people (Zagora Mouresi) and ten people (Athens) in the designated intervention areas and provided partnership and economic support to an NGO related to search and rescue activities, which provided security to all our participants. In both cases, we attained 56% of data from interviews and recordings of oral wisdom (living culture) of the related intervention areas. Based on the project results, we developed our R&D product which involves four universities in three countries and over twenty private bodies globally, resulting in one of the most innovative approaches concerning establishing phygital environments.
We couldn’t even start counting the innovation parameters of our projects, as it can be reflected throughout our managerial model (hybrid operational form) and already referred to. That exact model allows us to interoperate under the principles of Social and Solidarity Economics alongside Innovation Economics, Attention Economics, User-based economics, and Deep-tech economics. And this description covers only the operational aspect of the company. Likewise, in the field, we base our business making and profit production on the UN’s resolution describing the “Right to Development”, which underlines the necessity of offering populations the means to choose how they want to develop themselves. Furthermore, we act as an economic leverage for local communities by developing our projects under the scope of persevering cultural and natural heritage. Thus, we allow people to have their daily living costs covered, pay possible debts and, to this extent, release their productive power, becoming more involved in the socio-economic fabric and leading them to make more considered decisions for their living, e.g., elect representatives who support their communities, adjust, and persevere in harsh economic conditions, volunteering. Even them becoming ambassadors of our methodology to other regions globally. Lastly, by changing the managerial plan, we allow people to fully participate in decision-making whilst developing under the double-feed loop of knowledge exchange, transfer, and movability. Not to mention that this is only the first of the two-axe development plans of our company, as in phase two, we will use this knowledge library to produce phygital holographic environments under the related R&D protocol we’ve been developing.
The methodology of our approach is presented in steps:
• Identify the area we want to create a game.
• Investigate available resources to identify related pieces of information.
• Identify local cultural associations run by authorities or independently.
• A team of three (environmental engineer, scenario developer and field manager) are dispatched to the designated area.
• Our R&D team gathers and evaluates available data (economy, population, activities etc.).
• Set up meetings with local authorities.
• Submission of project proposal to the governing body (municipality, region, association, etc.).
• Hosting three informal meetings with local professionals, the unemployed population and the authorities based on the proposal’s approval.
• Based on another Best Practice developed by a member of our team (Thessaloniki2014-EYC), we launch production meetings with locals for design and development.
• The final business plan is produced (co-creation from teams and authorities). The process is mind-changing as it allows individuals to identify skills and capacities. Thus, we achieve 90% of the workforce to be locals, with an unimaginative will to work on the project.
• We launch our Diversity Atlas survey, a tool which allows us to enhance the project with mutuality inserts (DEI strategy for SDG).
• With the game design in progress and after its launch, we can pay locals for consumables, game-related necessities, and wages.
• Our profit comes from ticket sales, consumables creations and intellectual property royalties.
• Authorities and locals attain more income and profits (by combining various co-financing, projects, EU initiatives and private investments).
• With locals attaining more income and living in better conditions, the population flourishes and undertakes new initiatives.
• Within a six-month to a year, we establish a social enterprise covering operational and legal needs and transfer ownership to locals.
Every element can be replicated or transferred, except the DEIM metrics and the internal corporal procedures for supporting populations (due to the different economic theories we use in management). Our methodology has been adopted as Best Practice by the European Commission and shared via "Voices of Culture", the structured dialogue between the Commission and the CCI sector in the EU. Likewise, we are already spreading this model under different EU projects and initiatives (Erasmus+), SMART, Adeste+ consortium etc.
With the ESG strategies developing to meet the Sustainable Development Goals in an ever-transforming global environment affected by multiple crises, companies and organizations need to establish a quick pace into new tools, techniques, and overall management to maintain their growth whilst answering the considerations of the various stakeholders (customers, audiences, management, BoDs, funders etc.). At the same time, the EU’s gender equality plan raises red flags for public and private organizations unable to narrow the gender gap in employability. And this time around, verification of goodwill is not enough, as the Horizon Program clearly states that EU-funded public bodies and extended public-funded organizations need to have in place a code of conduct, methodologies, and tools to support training and capacity building, as well as tools to quantify the numbers in their policies. This policy expands into the disabled, neurodivergent and LGBTQIA+ populations, and populations on the move or marginalized. Our project methodology addressed the importance of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Mutuality for people, cultures, and environments to serve the SDG around Gender Equality (No5), Decent Work and Economic Growth (No8), Reduced Inequalities (No10), Sustainable Cities and Communities (No11) and Partnerships for the Goals (No17), and the Right to Development, as well as the ESG structure for ethical business making.
