When Games Become a Space for Change: Building Empathy Through Fortnite

What happens when, instead of telling children what a better world should look like, we give them the tools to build it themselves?

This summer, The Innovation House in Petah Tikva hosted a unique game development programme for children aged 11–14, bringing together gaming, creativity and social impact. Over several weeks in July and August, participants worked in the Innovation House gaming space and used Fortnite Creative to explore one of the most challenging social issues facing young people today: bullying, exclusion and, in particular, the often invisible reality of silent exclusion.

Their answer was Safe Haven—a co-adventure game designed for four players, whose shared mission is to help a girl who has experienced social exclusion find her way back to school. Success depends on cooperation, empathy, making decisions together and, importantly, noticing who is being left behind. The game invites players to recognise that exclusion is not always loud or visible. Sometimes it is simply not being invited, not being included or not being given a place.

The programme was part of the inaugural Createch Academy initiative at The Innovation House, developed in partnership with CreaTech-Labs. Rather than using gaming simply as a reward or engagement tool, the programme explored gaming as a medium for learning, creation and positive social change. The children were not only learning how to design and develop a game; they were using the process itself to explore empathy, collaboration, storytelling, problem-solving and social responsibility.

Perhaps the most powerful part of the experience was that we did not build the “better world” for them. They built it themselves. And in doing so, they experienced how the games they love can become a space for imagining—and practising—different ways of being together.

This experience strengthened our belief that gaming can be much more than entertainment. When connected to meaningful pedagogy, it can create relevant learning experiences while developing future-ready competencies and giving young people a genuine voice in shaping the world around them.