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A Game to Fight Malnutrition and Poverty in Peru

Chronic malnutrition is of crisis proportions among children in Peru. A high prevalence of stunting in the population has grave implications for the economic development of the country. Stunting in childhood reduces adults' economic productivity and earning capacity. The problem of stunting in Peru is highly concentrated in the Sierra region of the country. Almost 60% of the nation's stunted children live in the Sierra. The Sierra region consistently has the worst indicators for access to health, water and sanitation services, education, poverty and extreme poverty, and all indicators of dietary quality.

Peru’s nutrition problem does not solely rest on the availability of good, nutritious food, but the problem is also embedded in behavioral and cultural practices. Cultural practices are particularly influential in matters of food preparation and consumption. Certain foods may have strong ceremonial or religious ties, or may be preferred by a population simply as a matter of tradition.

Education can impact malnutrition levels through a number of pathways. Learning tools would be developed specifically to meet the needs of the rural populations and school teachers should be trained to deliver those messages appropriately.

The Government of Peru is conducting a major intervention programme to combat the country’s malnutrition problems. The program called CRECER [1] is the national plan for malnutrition and poverty. One of strategies is development of locally relevant, contextually appropriate curriculum based on successful strategies for children.

TECHNICAL PLAN

The idea is implement an application or game written entirely in PyGame which will be installed on the OLPC XO client. You thought about implementing a full functionality game with the possibility to extend and add new features in the future. You would evaluate the requirements of a suitable application, analyze use cases, design the UI and implement using PyGame.

Game design according to national, HUASCARAN [2] and CRECER [1], guidelines:

- Kids have to construct menus and recipes, decide what to eat and what to avoid, exercise or not. They can design a daily meal plan, choosing from hundreds of ingredients and recipes, improve selection and preparation of food products to achieve optimal nutritional value.

- Kids choosing their character’s dietary and exercise habits, they can experiment with the constraints of nutrition and economics as they affect their character's general health.

- Region-appropriate nutrition information. For example, if only potatoes grow in one area, the game should address ways diets for children in that region can supported by things like vitamins and growing particular types of local plants.

- User interface adapted to young people. Keyboard shortcuts: Change the theme, level button, game mode, chronometer, with sound or muted.

- Adaptation of the levels: for each activity, there are three levels of difficulty (easy, medium or difficult).

- Two modes of plays: free and directed.

- On the principal menu, the activities suggested go in a logical order.

- Language selection for the menus: Spanish, Quechua, Aymara.

- When the preferences are saved, they are made available immediately.