The YouthMADE Festival is a global celebration of youth creativity and innovation that invites students, educators, and advocates to showcase youth-led work. Leading up to the 2025 YouthMADE Festival, we are sharing a series of stories highlighting youth creators and changemakers around the world who are putting their hands, hearts, and minds toward projects and causes they care about.
This story is by fifth grade students Goldy and Maudy who attend Leap English and Digital, an afterschool program in Surabaya, Indonesia. In this story, Goldy and Maudy share their passion for youth literacy and how they created the Reading Aloud Board Game.
When we joined LeapXperience, we were so excited to have literacy as the main focus as it is an issue close to our hearts. We both love reading and were concerned about childhood literacy. We undertook an exciting learning journey to recognize a real-world challenge, ideate, and develop a solution about literacy.
This project is important to us because we believe in the transformative power of education and physical activity in children’s development. We want to make learning enjoyable and accessible, especially in today’s digital age where screen time often replaces physical play and reading.
Key milestones included designing the game board layout, creating different physical activity cards, and conducting initial testing sessions with children and educators. We actively sought feedback from children and educators through interviews and testing sessions. Their input helped us identify areas for improvement, such as adjusting game rules for clarity and adding more engaging physical activities. We continuously iterate on the project based on this feedback to enhance its effectiveness and appeal.
Two major challenges were resource limitations for materials and accessing diverse books and activities. We addressed this by repurposing existing materials and forming partnerships with local reading communities and organizations.
Students playing the Reading Aloud Board Game
We have gained practical skills in game design, including how to create engaging activities that promote literacy and physical fitness. Researching literacy trends and physical health statistics helped us understand the importance of our project’s objectives.
We have also improved our presentation skills. At the end of the program, we had an opportunity to present our project in front of our city officials and government representatives— it was the most rewarding experience for us.
Currently, we are learning about project scalability and digital expansion. We’re exploring how to reach a broader audience through technology, such as developing a mobile app or online platform for our game.
When we worked on this project—through observations, research, and interviews—we discovered that we weren’t the only ones who faced this challenge. This is one of the reasons we couldn’t be prouder that our solution to this challenge was handed over to our beloved city of Surabaya through the Library and Archive Department. We are immensely happy and proud to contribute to our city.
In the future, we envision the Reading Aloud Board Game being widely used in schools and homes as a fun and effective tool for enhancing literacy skills and promoting physical health. We hope to develop digital versions of the game to reach a broader audience globally. Ultimately, we aim for the project to inspire a lifelong love for reading and healthy living in children everywhere.
