Freedom Challenge an escape room style adventure resource review by Becky Lawrence, youth and chldrens worker at St Mark’s MK and founder of Youthwork+

 

Some of my young people LOVE escape rooms, they do them in their own time as a hobby, one of my young people even writes her own escape room chalenges just for fun!  If yours are anything like mine then i’m sure at least some of them have jumped onto the escape room craze that has been sweeping the country for the last couple of years!

For those who have no idea what an escape room is – think Crystal Maze – remember that tv show!? A group of contestants nominate themselves or each other to be put into a room where they have to solve a puzzle to be able to get out or risk being locked in! This is similar to the immersive experience escape rooms that have popped up across our towns and cities, except they tend to be played and solved as a team rather than by individuals and usually you only have to escape one room by solving multiple puzzles not multiple rooms and you pay for the privilege! (and there is no cash prize or crystal paperweight trophy at the end!)

The resource i’m reviewing and recommending is called The Freedom Challenge, it’s an engaging escape room-style adventure for young people, with the theme of exploring the urgent challenge to combat modern-day slavery across the world.  It’s a win win, as it’s packaged in a style that will engage your young people and also enable them to explore a real life justice issue and how faith ties into it.  It’s been put together by Youthscape and IJM (International Justice Mission) and contains everything you need.   There are 5 challenges and they suggest using 5 nearby rooms, so that young people can journey through the challenges 1 by one and work through them all without resetting the layout but it would also work in a large hall with 5 areas or tables set up.  I haven’t used this yet with my young people but I intend to, as I think it will go down a treat.

Heres what Youthscape say about it…

“Working together Youthscape and International Justice Mission have created a resource which is essentially everything you need as a youth worker needs to create a fully immersive escape room experience. We’ve created a something that pits teams against a series of fun puzzles and challenges across five different rooms. This is the full experience – props, music and darkened rooms! You’ll need to find the right space (the church building or even a local school), and borrow some props and basic equipment. We’ve done all the hard work in putting the puzzles together to create the maximum fun for anyone aged 11 and over. You won’t regret it! After two years of development and testing, we’ve been able to put together an amazing experience that young people tell us beats any other escape room they’ve visited!

And there’s a twist. The puzzles and theme are designed to introduce young people to the work of IJM across the world to end modern day slavery. Young people will learn about the issue through the different puzzles and be challenged to engage with this important issue.

What’s more, we’ll explain how you can turn The Freedom Challenge into an outreach event for the wider church, your local community or your youth group’s friends and peers. Plus, we’re including some ready-to-use follow-on sessions for your youth group to explore God’s heart for justice, the issue of modern-day slavery, and how young people can take practical action to make a difference.”

The Freedom Challenge resource includes:

• A USB drive with over 2.7GB of materials – music, videos, downloads to print and full instructions to set up the rooms.
• A printed organiser’s handbook – over 40 pages to take you step by step through planning and setting up your escape room.
• Five Freedom Challenge wristbands to give to winning teams – and you can buy extra from the YS store.
• A bag to keep the resources safe together

The organiser’s guide will take you through each room in detail, explaining what props you’ll need, how the challenges should be laid out and how to introduce it to teams. Everything used is either easy to borrow or cheap to buy. The USB drive has downloads of any materials for the walls and some of the puzzles. Plus there’s copyright-free music for each room and advice about how to create the right atmosphere. The guide also explains how to take teams through the experience from start to finish.

 

You can find this resource for sale in the Youthscape shop for £20 https://www.youthscape.co.uk/store/product/freedom-challenge

You can also apparently buy more wristbands to give to your young people once they’ve completed it but i couldn’t find these on the Youthscape store.

 

If you got this resource for free (like I did) as a delegate gift at the National Youth Ministry Weekend 2021, we didn’t receive the USB stick so this is the link to download the music, videos & additional resources you’ll need… https://ijm.app.box.com/s/lcsakjq9ij86x4ih8reboqjpxp5tkb4a