Games for Impact: Focus Ireland Collaboration
Family homelessness in Ireland is getting worse. Over 5,000 children are homeless and living in temporary accommodation. Focus Ireland's No Child With A Home and Shine A Light campaigns aim to raise awareness around homelessness, while motivating communities to make a difference by fundraising.
Students from the School of Media at TU Dublin partnered with Focus Ireland to create an interactive game to help promote their campaigns. Over 12 weeks, 34 Game Design (TU984) students collaborated with the organisation to develop a serious game inspired by the No Child Without a Home campaign.
This collaboration enabled students to apply their knowledge of Game Design and the SDGs in a real-life setting. It directly addressed SDG 3: Good Health and Wellbeing SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities and SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities – creating a tool for making an impact on social inequalities.
Under the guidance of Peter Lynch, Lecturer at the School of Media, the project was structured across three phases - planning, production, and delivery - guiding students through the full lifecycle of game development. Focus Ireland provided the initial design theme, ensuring the game remained grounded in real-world experiences and advocacy goals. The result is a purpose-driven digital experience designed to deepen understanding and foster empathy around homelessness in Ireland.
Reaching Younger Audiences Through Games
This collaboration demonstrates how creative media can be harnessed for social good. By translating complex social issues into interactive narratives, the project creates new pathways for education, engagement, and advocacy. The game offers Focus Ireland a powerful tool to reach broader audiences- particularly younger people - in a way that is immersive and emotionally resonant.
For students, the experience goes far beyond technical skill-building. They gained hands-on exposure to designing games with real-world impact, working directly with an external partner, and adapting their creativity to non-traditional contexts. The project also strengthened teamwork, communication, and the ability to deliver a professional product for a live client.
One participating student, Riona Sexton said:
"It was a delight to work not only on such a creative project, but also an incredibly important one."
Another student, Oleksandra Kochkina, said:
"We are grateful for the given us opportunity to spread awareness through the gaming experience."
Grace Allen, Acting Campaigns Manager at Focus Ireland said:
“We have ended up with three strong video games, which we aim to use to enrich the experience of people taking part in our event. Without this project, we would never have had the resource to invest in producing a bespoke game. I would encourage any non-profit to work with Peter and his students in the future, it's been a great experience for us at Focus Ireland.”
Peter Lynch, Lecturer at the School of Media, said:
“Focus Ireland was an excellent partner to work with. They supported the students with information and feedback throughout the modules and were active in all parts of the game design process.”
“Serious games are powerful interactive digital tools, and we hope they prove effective in assisting Focus Ireland in its ongoing advocacy and educational work.”
SDG Alignment
This initiative aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:
- SDG 3: Good Health and Wellbeing - Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
- SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities - Reduce inequality within and among countries
- SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities - Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Each Sustainability Action Lab project is underpinned by:
- SDG 17: Partnership for the Goals - Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development
- SDG 4: Quality Education - Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
GreenComp Alignment
The project also aligns with specific competences from the "GreenComp sustainability competency framework including
- Envisioning Sustainable Futures.
- Embodying Sustainability Values
|
Competency Area |
Competency |
Descriptor |
|
Embodying sustainability values |
Supporting fairness |
To support equity and justice for current and future generations and learn from previous generations for sustainability. |
|
Envisioning Sustainable Futures |
Exploratory thinking |
To adopt a relational way of thinking by exploring and linking different disciplines, using creativity and experimentation with novel ideas or methods |
This collaboration was supported by the Societal Engagement and Sustainability Education teams and through the Higher Education Authority’s Strategic Alignment of Teaching and Learning Enhancement (SATLE) fund.