It’s not every day that learning feels like play, but for participants at the recent Serious Games and One Health Workshop in Addis Ababa, that’s exactly what happened. For three days, 50 participants from 12 countries across Eastern and Southern Africa gathered at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) campus to explore how Serious Games can transform the way we teach, communicate, and collaborate within the One Health space.
At first, many wondered what makes a game “serious”? By the end of the workshop, the answer was clear. These games aren’t about competition or entertainment; they are tools for learning, dialogue, and systems thinking. Through play, participants unpacked complex interactions between people, animals, and the environment the essence of the One Health approach.
“While we had fun, lots of it, there was also a lot of learning, interaction, knowledge transfer and discovery,” one participant reflected. “We now understand how games can be powerful tools for communication and collaboration.”
Serious Games use interactive, experiential learning to simulate real-world scenarios. In the One Health context, this means players, whether policymakers, researchers, veterinarians, farmers, or students can explore how decisions in one sector impact others.
For instance, a game might challenge players to balance livestock production with public health or environmental conservation. Through play, complex trade-offs become visible, and collaboration becomes instinctive.
The workshop underscored several key lessons:
- Stakeholder engagement is essential — games must reflect local contexts, integrate indigenous knowledge, and include gender perspectives to be relevant and impactful.
- Insights from gameplay need to be translated into policy and practice, ensuring that learning leads to real-world collaboration and change.
Beyond professional circles, Serious Games offer exciting potential for teaching One Health concepts to children and communities. By turning learning into play, these tools make complex ideas, like disease transmission or ecosystem balance, accessible and memorable.
As participants discussed, tailoring the games to local languages and scenarios could make them powerful instruments for awareness, behavior change, and stakeholder engagement across Africa.
The workshop, organized by CIRAD under the Capacitating One Health in Eastern and Southern Africa (COHESA) project, showcased how playful learning can drive serious impact. By merging creativity with science, Serious Games are helping a new generation of One Health actors build understanding, empathy, and collaboration — one game at a time.