The Graffiti Wall Challenge

Do you recall walking past walls like these below?

This is a wall of shame. It’s the rear wall of a prominent establishment.

It has preserved paan stains and filth from the past several years. Its corners are used as the local urinal, and the stench is overpowering. None of the neighbours can recall if it was ever clean. Most confess to using it as dumping spot. Walking past this wall is incredibly unpleasant.

Surely, someone needs to do something? But what? And who will?

What if you could transform it like this below:

FocusU challenges you to take a team challenge that makes a tangible difference in your surroundings – The Graffiti Wall Challenge!

Teams equipped with all the necessary material have the enviable task of transforming a location. But hey, sometimes things are not as easy as they look to be.

The challenge involves the teams reaching the locations that are pre-selected (with all necessary approvals) by the FocusU team. Once they reach the place – teams are helped with some suggested designs from our panel of graffiti artists. The challenge for the teams is to transform the look and feel of the place in a sustainable way!

As teams get down to work, the realisation slowly seeps in that transforming the place is not just about painting the wall. To be fair, painting the wall is a challenging task for sure. But when they list down the rest of the work, it seems to pale in significance. Teams realise that:

• Transforming a place calls for a change in mindset of people around
• It is not just about the wall, but also about the approaches surrounding it
• To make it sustainable calls for creativity and local engagement

The Graffiti Wall Challenge is inspired by the work of The War on Litter Institute and The Broken windows theory which was introduced by social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. The title comes from the following example: “Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside. Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or even break into cars.” When people start perceiving that “no one cares” – the small crimes slowly start snow-balling into bigger ones.

At the end of the activity, when teams come back – The FocusU team helps in sharing the Before and After pictures of the place. As much as the place gets transformed, the whole experience that called for collaboration and team work also brings about a subtle transformation in the outlook of team members.
A few messages that The Graffiti Wall Challenge leaves participants with are:

• We can make a BIG difference
• We need to be the change we want to see in others
• And yes, Cleanliness is next to Godliness!

Come help transform the surroundings around you – one wall at a time. Call us today!