What to do
Each person should bring along a banana, or be given one. The group leader should ask the group to ‘get to know your banana.’
Everyone should examine their banana in detail (smell them, touch them, look at them). After a few minutes, collect the bananas in a big bowl, and then ask everyone to find their own banana in the pile.
Most people will probably recognise their bananas at once. Ask the group to describe how they recognised their bananas e.g. my banana was big, my banana had a mark on one side, my banana had dents and bruises. Use these ideas to talk about how people, too, come in different sizes, different shapes, different shades of colour and so on.
After exploring these ideas, collect the bananas again. This time ask everyone to peel their bananas before placing them in the bowl. Then ask everyone to find their banana again.
This time it is much more difficult and someone will probably say ‘But the bananas all look the same’. The group leader can use the reactions to start a discussion on how people may also look different on the outside, but everyone is similar on the inside. We shouldn’t judge people based on ‘surface’ differences such as the colour of their skin, their type of hair or the shape of their nose.
Tip
you could use the bananas afterwards to make smoothies during the session or to make banana bread