Room to Improve: Escape Rooms And Youth Turnout in America
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.
By Maggie Callahan
October 15, 2015
Only 31% of eligible people ages 19 to 29 voted in the 2018 midterms, which is disappointingly a strong turnout for this generation. This group makes up the second largest generation in America’s electorate and is poised to overtake Baby Boomers as the largest voting bloc soon. Despite the group’s potential electoral power in sheer numbers, low turnout continues to make the group electorally insignificant.
In Little Rock, Arkansas, a group of public servants, led by Ericka Benedicto and Juanenna Williams, is attempting to inspire greater youth turnout through an escape room, The Underground Escape: Give us the Ballot Room. The room combines education and social justice into a simulating escape room experience set in the Jim Crow South.
Participants enter a room and are tasked with completing a series of challenges in order to exit the space. The group is given an hour to complete the challenges and exit the space to cast their vote. These challenges inside the room include real examples of literacy tests and barriers that were used to bar African Americans from voting in the South.
Following the hour-long escape room challenge, participants engage in a 15-minute discussion led by a facilitator. The facilitator guides participants’ reflection on their experience and connects these personal experiences to broader issues and contemporary problems in democratic participation and social justice.
The escape room’s educational experience targets younger generations. Before a brick and mortar spot was secured, the escape room operated as a, “Pop-up,” room. The escape experience was transported throughout the Little Rock community and operated inside schools. The program now invites students to their own building, a more neutral environment which allows for freer and more open discussion.
Founders Bennedicto and Williams believe the project has the potential to spur personal connection and conversations about social justice and the importance of voting that will last long after the experience itself. The escape room experience has garnered attention and won the Clinton School of Public Service’s Community Philanthropy’s Advancing Equality Award in 2018 and was a part of the school’s second annual National Day of Racial Healing.
“By making a team navigate through the various roadblocks placed in the way of many voters, namely African American voters, you realize what a privilege voting is today,” Wesley Harris, a University of Arkansas student and participant in the escape room, said. Harris is just one of many students who has gone through the escape room and left more aware of the importance and significance of the right to vote in America.
There is much room for improvement for youth voter turnout in America. Escape rooms are just one of many interactive and stimulating methods that can inspire youth turnout and begin conversations on civil rights and democratic participation.
To learn more about this case visit https://participedia.net/case/5589.To read about other innovative applications of public participation visit, www.participedia.net.
Author: Maggie Callahan is a master’s student of public diplomacy at Syracuse University and a graduate assistant for the Participedia Project at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. She holds a bachelor’s in political science and economics from Mercer University and has worked in Georgian, Moroccan and Nepalese nongovernmental organizations and the American government. Follow her on Twitter: @laissezmaggie
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Room to Improve: Escape Rooms And Youth Turnout in America
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.
By Maggie Callahan
October 15, 2015
Only 31% of eligible people ages 19 to 29 voted in the 2018 midterms, which is disappointingly a strong turnout for this generation. This group makes up the second largest generation in America’s electorate and is poised to overtake Baby Boomers as the largest voting bloc soon. Despite the group’s potential electoral power in sheer numbers, low turnout continues to make the group electorally insignificant.
In Little Rock, Arkansas, a group of public servants, led by Ericka Benedicto and Juanenna Williams, is attempting to inspire greater youth turnout through an escape room, The Underground Escape: Give us the Ballot Room. The room combines education and social justice into a simulating escape room experience set in the Jim Crow South.
Participants enter a room and are tasked with completing a series of challenges in order to exit the space. The group is given an hour to complete the challenges and exit the space to cast their vote. These challenges inside the room include real examples of literacy tests and barriers that were used to bar African Americans from voting in the South.
Following the hour-long escape room challenge, participants engage in a 15-minute discussion led by a facilitator. The facilitator guides participants’ reflection on their experience and connects these personal experiences to broader issues and contemporary problems in democratic participation and social justice.
The escape room’s educational experience targets younger generations. Before a brick and mortar spot was secured, the escape room operated as a, “Pop-up,” room. The escape experience was transported throughout the Little Rock community and operated inside schools. The program now invites students to their own building, a more neutral environment which allows for freer and more open discussion.
Founders Bennedicto and Williams believe the project has the potential to spur personal connection and conversations about social justice and the importance of voting that will last long after the experience itself. The escape room experience has garnered attention and won the Clinton School of Public Service’s Community Philanthropy’s Advancing Equality Award in 2018 and was a part of the school’s second annual National Day of Racial Healing.
“By making a team navigate through the various roadblocks placed in the way of many voters, namely African American voters, you realize what a privilege voting is today,” Wesley Harris, a University of Arkansas student and participant in the escape room, said. Harris is just one of many students who has gone through the escape room and left more aware of the importance and significance of the right to vote in America.
There is much room for improvement for youth voter turnout in America. Escape rooms are just one of many interactive and stimulating methods that can inspire youth turnout and begin conversations on civil rights and democratic participation.
To learn more about this case visit https://participedia.net/case/5589.To read about other innovative applications of public participation visit, www.participedia.net.
Author: Maggie Callahan is a master’s student of public diplomacy at Syracuse University and a graduate assistant for the Participedia Project at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. She holds a bachelor’s in political science and economics from Mercer University and has worked in Georgian, Moroccan and Nepalese nongovernmental organizations and the American government. Follow her on Twitter: @laissezmaggie
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