Goal of the event:
We wanted to promote the ExchangeAbility project on the occasion of Valentine's Day and raise awareness about students with disabilities. As this being the Flagship project for ESN International, we decided to make our first ExchangeAbility happen, and we plan to have more in the future.
Short description of the event:
"Blind speed dating is a concept where we give space to the conversation itself! Stripping away physical prejudice might be an enlightening experience. You do not have to stress about your appearance and you have a chance to connect with someone completely new"
Preparation: Scarves as blindfolds, food (valentines themed with strawberry cake and chocolate), papers or some proper number tags, registration form beforehand (mentions name, age, gender identity, sexual orientations and allergies)
How it actually works?
Before entering. as students drop in one by one, we blindfold them and get them seated as we wait for all the participants to arrive. The instruction is 5 minutes of talking with one rule “no name” just in case people might actually know each other beforehand. After 5 minutes, we tell them to stop and if they want to get acquainted they show thumbs up or if not thumbs down. This provides a low pressure situation where no one can see results and it’s okay to reject a person if they feel uncomfortable. After that, we rotate until all pairs have met. In the end they take of their blindfolds and if they want to know who they paired up with they can ask the organizers. We do not publicly announce the pairs because that might also feel uncomfortable.
How did your event go?:
The event itself was successful, even though one male would have been needed to make the pairs even. So one girl had to sit down every now and again but the hosts kept the person company (to note: there will be more men joining in the game so maybe in future some straightforward advertisement on needed genders during event promotion? also promoting sexual orientation inclusion is important!) We asked from some of the girls sitting down that how did they feel about the event and they said it was interesting because of the fact that the words become the main focus and it was good but also challenging. In the end we saw a couple leaving together for sightseeing so we consider this a huge success
