Yangon Htee City is dedicated to the future of Yangon as a city in which all people work together to adapt to a changing climate. Since 2019, Yangon Htee City has been contributing to the improvement of urban climate resilience through tangible and practical interventions at a neighborhood, street, and household level, including household rainwater harvesting, drainage improvement, water quality monitoring, household water filters, and also through community-based actions such as awareness and education programs, knowledge-sharing platforms, and mobile application.
The first edition of the “Yangon Raincraft” program was successfully organized in July 2021 in collaboration with UN-Habitat, Block by Block Foundation, and accordingly with the overwhelming interest of the community towards the program, the second round “Yangon Raincraft II” was launched in October 2021.
The uniqueness of the program is that it not only includes knowledge sharing and discussion sessions about climate change and water-related issues, but it also applies an innovative approach of utilizing the Minecraft video game as a participatory tool to co-design the ideas and solutions of the participants within the virtual neighborhood: modelled true-to-life in Minecraft.
The 3-week online program was run with 20 carefully selected participants ranging from high school students to young professionals from various backgrounds including Engineering, Environmental Studies, Zoology, Philosophy, and Microbiology, etc. Through a series of orchestrated sessions, each participant was empowered to strengthen the knowledge individually as well as collectively as a group by means of participatory activities and discussions.
Here are some of the testimonials about the program from our partners and participants:
This is one of the most innovative programs I have ever joined! Playing Minecraft is my favourite part as I became really close with my teammates while building the interventions together in Minecraft, and it made me feel like I implemented the designs in reality.
Hnin, 21-year-old, a Computer Science Student
Raincraft sessions improved the Block by Block methodology using NPCs and tackling climate change issues. The participants showed great interest and participation in both workshops. I was surprised to see how facilitators and participants implemented solutions to save water and combat floods in their neighborhood.
Eugenio, Program Expert and Technical Support from Block by Block foundation and UN-Habitat
It was really nice to see how all of the participants were able to think in an integrated way by combining the solutions of too much water and too little water with different uses and inclusiveness within the designs in Minecraft
Flore, Project Co-lead of Yangon Htee City
