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.

Ethiopia's 2022 dietary guidelines are a policy document — not something teenagers actually read. So 47 adolescents helped turn them into games. After thirteen weeks of play, students said they were eating differently at home.

For WUR & EPHI By Efuye Gela, Addis Ababa 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 lose teenagers fast. So we let them design the games — with nutritionists and game designers alongside — 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.

The testing →

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 methodObservation → Evidence → Design decision

Observed

What the adolescents did in session, rather than what was expected of them.

Evidence

Votes, attendance counts, quotes and behaviour logged in session.

Design decision

The specific change made to the games as a result.

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

Game 02

Gursha

Game 03

Digis

Game design + print and play How each game works, and how to print your own set Mechanics, the design decision behind each one, and downloadable print-and-play materials built on the Ethiopian FBDG food groups.

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 — A weekly session in progress. Game Masters assembled at the Creative Hub from 11:00, arrived 20–35 minutes early to set up, and ran 15–30 minutes of uninterrupted play.

One school per weekday. Sessions rotated through Schools 1–6, one per day. (Schools are identified by code throughout to protect participating institutions and students.)
Structured as a tournament. Weekly visits, prizes and certificates framed participation around the students' own motivation.
Games introduced progressively as competence grew, from Beyaynetu Level 1 through Gursha, Digis and the later levels.

Full findings Attendance data and week-by-week results Retention across all six schools, what supported it, and what limited it — reported in full on the intervention page.

The results

What actually changed

In the students' own words — reflections recorded during the final weeks of the intervention.

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

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

Commissioning partner

Research partner

Delivery partner

Training partner

Closure

The stakeholder closing event, 6 July 2026 — The closing event, 6 July 2026 — games and rulebooks were handed over to representatives of all twelve participating schools.

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.

Partner with Efuye Gela →