Kids in Kibera will soon be helping make their community a better place.
A video game company called Mojang has teamed up with UN-Habitat to start a project called Block by Block. UN-Habitat is a part of the United Nations that helps improve communities around the world. The purpose of Block by Block is to get young people involved in changing their communities for the better. They will do this by playing Minecraft, a video game created by Mojang. Mojang and UN-Habitat have chosen Kibera to be the first community they will work with. Kibera is a large neighborhood in Nairobi, a city in the East African country of Kenya.
Most people in Kibera are very poor. Many are unemployed, and some are homeless. The children there have very little to do in their free time. With the support of the Block by Block project, kids in Kibera will soon be helping improve their community. Using the Minecraft game as a tool, they will show what they would like to change about where they live. In Minecraft, a player can stack and arrange different color blocks on screen to build whatever he or she wants. The kids in Kibera will be able to create things they would like to see in their community, such as parks, playgrounds, or different kinds of homes.
Builders hired by Mojang have already started creating a virtual, or computer-simulated, version of Kibera for Minecraft. When it is completed, kids will use their imagination to build new things in virtual Kibera or rebuild what is already there. They will share their ideas with the people working for Block by Block. The Block by Block group will then decide which of the ideas can be built in the real-life community of Kibera. Mojang and UN-Habitat plan to use Minecraft to help 300 communities around the world.
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